Temporal and geographical variation in the onset of climatological spring in Northeast China
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Temporal and geographical variation in the onset of climatological spring in Northeast China Haifeng Zheng & Neil B. McLaughlin & Xingyuan He & Xingyang Yu & Zhibin Ren & Dan Zhang Received: 3 August 2012 / Accepted: 20 February 2013 # Springer-Verlag Wien 2013
Abstract Indications of earlier onset of spring have been observed in behavior of diverse animal and plant species in the Northern Hemisphere in response to recent climate warming. Knowledge of changes in the spring onset is a critical requirement for understanding ecosystem adaption to climate change, especially for agricultural regions. In this study, we present a climatological approach for detecting the temporal and spatial variability in onset of spring with particular emphasis on how they vary along geographical parameters. Yearly dates for spring onset were computed for 71 climate stations in Northeast China based on daily surface air temperature records. These analyses were conducted for the two study periods (1960–2004 and 1979–2004). We also examined the boundary shifts of spring onset for three selected dates between the periods of 1960–1978 and 1979– 2004. The results showed that advancement of spring onset was more pronounced for the period of 1979–2004 than for the period of 1960–2004 (4.0 vs. 2.2 days/decade). For the 22 stations where the spring advancement was statistically significant in the two periods, the mean rate of advancement was −0.6 days/decade during the period of 1960 to 1978. The trends of advancement of spring onset decreased with both increasing latitude and altitude up to 300 m above sea level, and these geographical effects were clearer during 1979–2004. Analysis of boundary shifts of three specific dates revealed that the spring onset has moved to higher
H. Zheng : X. He (*) : X. Yu : Z. Ren : D. Zhang Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 4888 Shengbei Road, Changchun, Jilin Province 130102, China e-mail: [email protected] N. B. McLaughlin Eastern Cereal and Oilseed Research Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0C6, Canada
latitudes for each date with an average shift of about 1° of latitude (about 110 km). Our results suggest that attempts to address how ecosystems will adapt to spring advancement associated with climate warming should consider the differences in response rates and geographical effects across the study area.
1 Introduction The global mean surface temperatures have warmed 0.74± 0.18 °C over the last century (1906–2005) and are projected to continue to rise at a rapid rate (IPCC 2007). However, there has been a great deal of temporal variability; nearly 90 % of the warming has occurred since 1950s, and the period of 1997–2006 was the warmest decade over the last century (Vose et al. 2005; IPCC 2007). A growing number of studies have documented that the phenology of species in mid to high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere is changing and is strongly responsive to this climate change, particularly in spring (Parmesa
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