Change in Extreme Climate Events over China Based on CMIP5

AbstractThe changes in a selection of extreme climate indices (maximum of daily maximum temperature (TXx), minimum of daily minimum temperature (TNn), annual total precipitation when the daily precipitation exceeds the 95th percentile of wet-day precipitation (very wet days, R95p), and the maximum number of consecutive days with less than 1 mm of precipitation (consecutive dry days, CDD)) were projected using multi-model results from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project in the early, middle, and latter parts of the 21st century under different Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) emissions scenarios. The results suggest that TXx and TNn will increase in the future and, moreover, the increases of TNn under all RCPs are larger than those of TXx. R95p is projected to increase and CDD to decrease significantly. The changes in TXx, TNn, R95p, and CDD in eight sub-regions of China are different in the three periods of the 21st century, and the ranges of change for the four indices under th...