References

ANGEO

Annales Geophysicae

ANGEO

Ann. Geophys.

1432-0576

Copernicus Publications

Göttingen, Germany

10.5194/angeo-31-795-2013

Variability and trend of diurnal temperature range in China and their relationship to total cloud cover and sunshine duration

Xia

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4187-6311

LAGEO, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

03 05 2013

31 5 795 804

2013

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

This article is available from https://angeo.copernicus.org/articles/31/795/2013/angeo-31-795-2013.html

The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://angeo.copernicus.org/articles/31/795/2013/angeo-31-795-2013.pdf

This study aims to investigate the effect of total cloud cover (TCC) and sunshine duration (SSD) in the variation of diurnal temperature range (DTR) in China during 1954–2009. As expected, the inter-annual variation of DTR was mainly determined by TCC. Analysis of trends of 30-year moving windows of DTR and TCC time series showed that TCC changes could account for that of DTR in some cases. However, TCC decreased during 1954–2009, which did not support DTR reduction across China. DTRs under sky conditions such as clear, cloudy and overcast showed nearly the same decreasing rate that completely accounted for the overall DTR reduction. Nevertheless, correlation between SSD and DTR was weak and not significant under clear sky conditions in which aerosol direct radiative effect should be dominant. Furthermore, 30–60% of DTR reduction was associated with DTR decrease under overcast conditions in south China. This implies that aerosol direct radiative effect appears not to be one of the main factors determining long-term changes in DTR in China.

References 1

Che, H., Shi, G., Zhang, X., Arimoto, R., Zhao, J., Xu, L., Wang, B., and Chen, Z.: Analysis of 40 years of solar radiation data from China, 1961–2000, Geophys. Res., Lett., 32, L06803, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2004GL022322">https://doi.org/10.1029/2004GL022322</a>, 2005.

Dai, A., Del Genio, A., and Fung, I.: Clouds, precipitation, and temperature range, Nature, 386, 665–666, 1997.

Dai, A., Trenberth, K., and Karl, T.: Effects of clouds, soil moisture, precipitation, and water vapor on diurnal temperature range, J. Climate, 12, 2451–2473, 1999.

Guo, R., Guo, J., Xu, M., Chu, Z., Zhang, L., Zou, X., Li, Q., and Liu, X.: Climate changes of China's mainland over the past half century, ACTA Meteo. Sin., 63, 942–956, 2005.

Hansen, J. and Sato, R.: Long-term change of the diurnal temperature cycle: implications about mechanisms of global climate change, Atmos. Res., 37, 175–209, 1995.

Hinkelman L., Stackhouse, P., Wielicki, B., Zhang, T., and Wilson, S.: Surface insolation trends from satellite and ground measurements: comparisons and challenges, J. Geophys. Res., 114, D00D20, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2008JD011004">https://doi.org/10.1029/2008JD011004</a>, 2009.

Huang, Y., Dickinson, R., Chameides, W.: Impacts of aerosol indirect effect on surface temperature over East Asia, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 103, 4371–4376, 2006.

IPCC, Climate change 2007: the physical science basis, contribution of working group I to the fourth assessment report of the IPCC (ISBN 978 0521 88009-1), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007.

Karl, T., Knight, R., Gallo, K., Peterson, T., Jones, P., Kukla, G., Plummer, N., Razuvayev, V., Lindseay, J., and Charson, R.: A new perspective on recent global warming: asymmetric trends of daily maximum and minimum temperature, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 74, 1007–1023, 1993.

Liang, F. and Xia, X. A.: Long-term trends in solar radiation and the associated climatic factors over China for 1961–2000, Ann. Geophys., 23, 2425–2432, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/angeo-23-2425-2005">https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-23-2425-2005</a>, 2005.

Liu, B., Xu, M., Henderson, M., Qi, Y., and Li, Y.: Taking China's temperature: daily range, warming trends, and regional variations, 1955–2000, J. Climate, 17, 4453–4462, 2004.

Luo, Y., Lu, D., Zhou, X., Li, W., and He, Q.: Characteristics of the spatial distribution and yearly variation of aerosol optical depth over China in last 30 years, J. Geophys. Res., 106, 14501–14513, 2001.

Makowski, K., Jaeger, E. B., Chiacchio, M., Wild, M., Ewen, T., and Ohmura, A.: On the relationship between diurnal temperature range and surface solar radiation in Europe, J. Geophys. Res., 114, D00D07, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2008JD011104">https://doi.org/10.1029/2008JD011104</a>, 2009.

Qiu, J. and Yang, L.: Variation characteristics of atmospheric aerosol optical depths and visibility in North China during 1980–1994, Atmos. Environ., 34, 603–609, 2000.

Sanchez-Lorenzo, A. and Wild, M.: Decadal variations in estimated surface solar radiation over Switzerland since the late 19th century, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 12, 8635–8644, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/acp-12-8635-2012">https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-12-8635-2012</a>, 2012.

Sanchez-Lorenzo, A., Brunetti, M., Calbo, J., and Martin-Vide, J.: Recent spatial and temporal variability and trends of sunshine duration over the Iberian Peninsula from a homogenized data set, J. Geophys. Res., 112, D20115, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2007JD008677">https://doi.org/10.1029/2007JD008677</a>, 2007.

Sanchez-Lorenzo, A., Calbó, J., and Wild, M.: Increasing cloud cover in the 20th century: review and new findings in Spain, Clim. Past, 8, 1199–1212, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/cp-8-1199-2012">https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-8-1199-2012</a>, 2012.

Wang, X.: Accounting for autocorrelation in detecting mean shifts in climate data series using the penalized maximal <i>t</i> or <i>F</i> test, J. Appl. Meteorol. Climatol., 47, 2423–2444, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2008JAMC1741.1">https://doi.org/10.1175/2008JAMC1741.1</a>, 2008.

Wang, K. C., Dickinson, R. E., Wild, M., and Liang, S.: Atmospheric impacts on climatic variability of surface incident solar radiation, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 12, 9581–9592, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/acp-12-9581-2012">https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-12-9581-2012</a>, 2012.

Weatherhead, E., Reinsel, G., Tiao, G., Ment, X., Choi, D., Cheang, W., Keller, T., DeLuisi, J., Wuebbles, D., Kerr, J., Miller, A., Oltmans, S., and Frederick, E.: Factors affecting the detection of trends: statistical considerations and applications to environmental data, J. Geophys. Res., 103, 17149–17161, 1998.

Wild, M.: How well do IPCC-AR4/CMIP3 climate models simulate global dimming/brightening and twentieth century daytime and nighttime warming?, J. Geophys. Res., 114, D00D11, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2008JD011372">https://doi.org/10.1029/2008JD011372</a>, 2009a.

Wild, M.: Global dimming and brightening: a review, J. Geophys. Res., 114, D00D16, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2008JD011470">https://doi.org/10.1029/2008JD011470</a>, 2009b.

Xia, X.: Spatiotemporal changes in sunshine duration and cloud amount as well as their relationship in China during 1954–2005, J. Geophys. Res., 115, D00K06, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2009JD012879">https://doi.org/10.1029/2009JD012879</a>, 2010a.

Xia, X.: A closer looking at dimming and brightening in China during 1961–2005, Ann. Geophys., 28, 1121–1132, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/angeo-28-1121-2010">https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-28-1121-2010</a>, 2010b.

Xia, X., Chen, H., Goloub, P., Zhang, W., Chatenet, B., and Wang, P.: A compilation of aerosol optical properties and calculation of direct radiative forcing over an urban region in northern China, J. Geophys. Res., 112, D12203, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2006JD008119">https://doi.org/10.1029/2006JD008119</a>, 2007.

Zhou, L., Dai, A., Dai, Y., Vose, R., Zou, C., Tian, Y., and Chen, H.: Spatial dependence of diurnal temperature range trends on precipitation from 1950 to 2004, Clim. Dynam., 32, 429–440, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00382-008-0387-5">https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-008-0387-5</a>, 2004.

Zhou, L., Dickinson, R., Dai, A., and Dirmeyer, P.: Detection and attribution of anthropogenic forcing to diurnal temperature range changes from 1950 to 1999: comparing multi-model simulations with observations, Clim. Dynam., 35, 1289–1307, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00382-009-0644-2">https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-009-0644-2</a>, 2010.