AN EVALUATION OF METEOROLOGICAL VARIATIONS AND DROUGHT EFFECTS IN CHINA OVER THE PERIOD 1980-2010 - B. Wagan; Z. Zhanyu; F. Baoping; S. Memon; S. Han (Journal of Animal and Plant Sciences, 2016)
The main objective of this study is to examine the role of meteorological variables as an important aspect of climate change and their role in determining environmental changes such as drought for nine Chinese weather stations over the period 1980-2010. We use Statistix 8.1 software and Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) together with a large dataset of five major meteorological variables: temperature, humidity, wind velocity, solar radiation and precipitation to determine positive or negative trends in our dataset. Our main findings are as follows. First, we find that Anyang and Changzhi stations of China have remained under high wind velocity. Second, Xingtai station has high solar radiation, wind velocity and also there is evidence of drought. Third, we find highest coefficient of variation for humidity (23.3%) for Yushe station. Overall, there is an increasing trend in temperature, solar radiation, humidity and wind velocity and decreasing trend in precipitation from 1980 to 2010. We conclude that all these factors contributed to shortage of rainfall and resulted in drought.
Keywords: journal article; Meteorological variations; drought; Statistix 8.1; SPI; China