A Comparative Analysis of Changes in Temperature and Precipitation Extremes since 1960 between China and Greece

Abstract

The temporal and spatial variations of 26 extreme temperature and precipitation indices for China and Greece were comparatively analysed. Also, their association with atmospheric circulation types was evaluated using multiple linear regression. The calculation of the extreme indices was based on homogenized daily temperature and precipitation time series from 1960 to 2010 for Greece and 2021 for China. Extreme precipitation, intensity, and short-term heavy precipitation increased, while persistent heavy precipitation has decreased since 1960 in China. Short-term heavy precipitation has also shown an increasing trend in Greece, though total precipitation and persistent heavy precipitation decreased there between 1960 and 2010. Extreme cold events have tended to decrease, and extreme warm events have increased in both countries, a fact that can be attributed to global warming. For comparison, climatic warming in China was mainly seen in the half year of winter, while the extreme indices relevant to cold seasons such as FD0 and ID0 presented a small trend in Greece. The observed changes in many climatic indices, including RX5day and WSDI in China and R20MM, RX5day, CDD, PRCPTOT and FD0 in Greece, could be partly explained by those of the main large-scale circulation types in the corresponding regions. The significant multiple correlation coefficients of the main circulation types were up to 0.53 for RX5day and 0.54 for WSDI in China, and 0.74 for PRCPTOT and 0.71 for R20MM in Greece. The relationships between climatic indices and circulation types were closer in Greece than in China, especially for the precipitation indices.

Keywords

• extreme temperature
• extreme precipitation
• comparative analysis
• circulation type
• China
• Greece