Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Publication Date
2 August 2013

Instrumental Temperature Series in Eastern and Central China Back to the Nineteenth Century

Authors

Author

In this study, we bring together different source data sets and use quality control, interpolation, and homogeneity methods to construct a set of homogenized monthly mean surface air temperature (SAT) series for 18 stations in eastern and central China from the late 19th century. Missing values are statistically interpolated, and cross validation is used to assess the accuracy of the interpolation approaches. Results show that the errors of interpolation are small, and the interpolated values are statistically acceptable. Multiple homogeneity methods and all available metadata are used to assess the consistency of the time series and then to develop adjustments when necessary. Thirty-three homogeneity breakpoints are detected in the 18 stations, and the time series is adjusted to the latest segment of the data series. The adjusted annual mean SAT generally shows a range of trends of 1.0° to 4.2°C/100 years in northeastern and southeastern China and a range of trends of −0.3° to 1.0°C/100 years in central China near 30°N. Compared to the adjusted time series, the unadjusted time series underestimates the warming trend during the past 100 years. The regional and annual mean SAT over eastern and central China agrees well with estimates from a much denser station network over this region of China since 1951 and shows a warming trend of 1.52°C/100 years during 1909–2010.

Cao, L, P Zhao, Z Yan, P D Jones, Y Yu, and G Tang. 2013. “Instrumental Temperature Series In Eastern And Central China Back To The Nineteenth Century”. Journal Of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres, 8197–8207. doi:10.1002/jgrd.50615.
Funding Program Area(s)