Spatial and temporal temperature trends on the Yunnan Plateau (Southwest China) during 1961-2004
Monthly mean (TEM), maximum (Tmax) and minimum (Tmin) surface air temperatures at 119 meteorological stations on the Yunnan Plateau (YP, Southwest China) were analysed for temporal trends and spatial variation patterns during the period 1961–2004. Linear trend analyses revealed that annual temperature over the YP increased at a rate of 0.3 °C/decade during the period 1961–2004, while warming trend of 0.33 °C/decade and 0.26 °C/decade was observed for winter and summer temperatures, respectively. Warming trends of nighttime minimum temperature are more pronounced than those of daytime maximum temperature, especially during winter season. Consequently, a decreasing trend of diurnal temperatur…
Continental-scale temperature variability during the past two millennia
Past global climate changes had strong regional expression. To elucidate their spatio-temporal pattern, we reconstructed past temperatures for seven continental-scale regions during the past one to two millennia. The most coherent feature in nearly all of the regional temperature reconstructions is a long-term cooling trend, which ended late in the nineteenth century. At multi-decadal to centennial scales, temperature variability shows distinctly different regional patterns, with more similarity within each hemisphere than between them. There were no globally synchronous multi-decadal warm or cold intervals that define a worldwide Medieval Warm Period or Little Ice Age, but all reconstructi…