Characteristics of regional climate change and pattern analysis on Ordos Plateau

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Li, Guo-qing | Zheng, Yuan-run

Affiliations: Laboratory of Quantitative Vegetation Ecology, Institute ofBotany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093

Note: [] E-mail:liguoqing@ns.ibcas.ac.cn

Note: [] Corresponding author. E-mail: zhengyr@ihw.com.cn

Abstract: The characteristics of precipitation, temperature andtheir combination determine the special ecological environmentpattern of Ordos Plateau. Analyzing its evolutionary trendattributes to understanding the succession process of theecological environment of Ordos Plateau and has crucialinstructional significance on the ecological restoration researchbeing conducted in this region. Four time scales, arranging fromten days, one month, one season (growing season contrasting tonon-growing season) to one year were adopted to analyze the climatedata which included nearly 30 years and were collected by eightweather stations on Ordos Plateau. The results indicated that the mean annual temperature and the mean monthly temperature ofFebruary, September and December, had increased significantlyduring the late 30 years. The annual precipitation did not showsignificant changes but its distribution pattern had changedobviously. The ratio of precipitation of major growing season(May-October) to annual precipitation had increased distinctively,and five counties' precipitation reached statistically significantlevel. And the ratio of precipitation of latter growing season(September) to one year decreased significantly while the ratio ofnon-growing season(November-next April) to one year changedinsignificantly. The results showed that maybe the interaction ofincreased mean temperature and insignificant change ofprecipitation in non-growing season was one of the reasons why thedesertification of the region was deteriorating in recent years. Using some factors closely relating to vegetation succession suchas mean annual temperature, mean annual precipitation, distributivepattern of precipitation, mean temperature of the coldest month,mean temperature of the warmest month, precipitation of the warmestmonth, mean temperature of growing season, precipitation of growingseason, potential evapotranspiration(PET) and radiative drynessindex(RDI), to synthetically analyze the climate characteristics ofOrdos Plateau. The regionalized Ordos Plateau to three syntheticalclimate types were recognized as follows: Type I, semi-humid andlow evaporation (including Jungar Banner, Dongsheng City and EjinHoro Banner), Type II, semi-arid, semi-humid and moderateevaporation (including Uxin Banner and Dalad Banner), Type III,arid and high evaporation (including Hanggin Banner, Otog Bannerand Otog Qian Banner).

Keywords: climate change, climatic synthetical regionalization, restoration ecology, Ordos Plateau

Journal: Journal of Environmental Sciences, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 568-576, 2002