资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

We report on changes in annual decile groups of daily maximum and minimum temperatures (T-max and T-min) from 437 weather stations across China since 1955, with special attention to the reported global warming hiatus' period since 1999. The values of T-max and T-min have increased significantly across all deciles between 1955 and 2014, with colder deciles of T-min increasing faster than warmer deciles. We find abrupt increases starting at colder deciles since the early 1970s for T-min and mid-1980s for T-max, followed by increases in the middle deciles in the later 1980s and in the warmer deciles in the early 1990s for both T-max and T-min. During the warming hiatus period, in contrast to the prior rapid warming period, colder deciles show no significant decreasing trends, while most middle to warmer deciles of T-min continue to increase significantly, a finding which is masked in studies focusing on either average temperatures or extremes. The recent pause in the increase of mean temperatures is probably due to opposing changes in the trends at the tails of the temperature distribution. Our results demonstrate the differential changes in class intervals across the entire distribution of daily maximum and minimum temperatures.