Work

Escalating risks of anomalously hot–dry growing seasons in arid Northwest China under human influence

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: The anomalous hydrothermal conditions during growing seasons, i.e. less precipitation and high temperature, could induce an unstable water resource supply and pose great threats to regional agro-pastoral production, particularly in water-scarce drylands. Owing to the biases in the simulations of global climate models, quantifying the anthropogenic influences on such high-impact hot–dry extremes and future risks in the arid and semi-arid areas remains challenging. Based on CN05.1 observations and statistically downscaled simulations from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6, we conducted a comprehensive attribution and projection on the 2022- and 2023-like growing-season hot–dry extremes in Northwest China (NWC). Observations reveal that NWC experienced a fourfold increase in the occurrence of anomalously hot–dry growing seasons during 1991–2023 relative to that in 1961–1990. Attribution indicates that anthropogenic forcings have doubled/tripled the likelihood of 2022/2023-like hot–dry growing seasons in NWC largely due to human-induced warming. NWC is expected to experience increasingly hot growing seasons but with slight precipitation changes in the 21st century under the intermediate greenhouse gas emission (SSP2-4.5) scenario. The likelihood of 2022/2023-like hot–dry growing seasons in NWC will be more than 1–5 times that in the present-day (1991–2020), which is still dominated by rising temperature. To alleviate the stress of hot–dry growing seasons on agro-pastoral systems, we underscore the urgency of developing effective adaptation and mitigation strategies for water resource management in water-limited drylands.

Source: Advances in Climate Change Research

DOI: 10.1016/j.accre.2025.08.004