title: Quantifying the Intra-Regional Precipitation Variability in Northwestern China over the Past 1,400 Years.
abstract: There has been a surge of paleo-climatic/environmental studies of Northwestern China (NW China), a region characterized by a diverse assortment of hydro-climatic systems. Their common approach, however, focuses on "deducing regional resemblance" rather than "exploring regional variance." To date, efforts to produce a quantitative assessment of long-term intra-regional precipitation variability (IRPV) in NW China has been inadequate. In the present study, we base on historical flood/drought records to compile a decadal IRPV index for NW China spanned AD580-1979 and to find its major determinants via wavelet analysis. Results show that our IRPV index captures the footprints of internal hydro-climatic disparity in NW China. In addition, we find distinct ~120-200 year periodicities in the IRPV index over the Little Ice Age, which are attributable to the change of hydro-climatic influence of ocean-atmospheric modes during the period. Also, we offer statistical evidence of El Niño Southern Oscillation (Indo-Pacific warm pool sea surface temperature and China-wide land surface temperature) as the prominent multi-decadal to centennial (centennial to multi-centennial) determinant of the IRPV in NW China. The present study contributes to the quantitative validation of the long-term IRPV in NW China and its driving forces, covering the periods with and without instrumental records. It may help to comprehend the complex hydro-climatic regimes in the region.
authors.affiliation: Department of Geography, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR, China; International Centre of China Development Studies, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR, China.
authors.forename: Harry F
authors.initials: HF
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Department of Geography, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR, China; International Centre of China Development Studies, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR, China.
authors.forename: Qing
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Pei
authors.affiliation: Department of Geography, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR, China; International Centre of China Development Studies, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR, China.
authors.forename: David D
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Geography, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR, China.
authors.forename: Kan P K
authors.initials: KP
authors.lastname: Choi
mesh_terms: D001272:Atmosphere; D002681:China; D002980:Climate; D005843:Geography; D009792:Oceans and Seas; D010163:Paleontology; D011891:Rain; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013997:Time Factors; D058067:Wavelet Analysis