09/28/2009
A Homogenized Historical Temperature Dataset of 1951-2004 for Mainland China
Summary
China has a huge national surface observational network comprised of 671 surface meteorological stations that provide a rich historical resource for climate scientists. Unfortunately many of these observational stations have been relocated during the last century resulting in an unknown number of artificial discontinuities in China’s historical temperature archives. DOE has partially funded an effort to develop a “new” and consistent gridded temperature dataset for China. This dataset includes an assessment of homogeneity, the adjustment of the time series based on site relocations, and changes in the observation times. The station data is gridded to a 2.5o X 2.5o latitude-longitude resolution on monthly timescales for the period 1951-2004 and covers the whole of China, including Tibet. This valuable dataset will soon be available on website of the Chinese Meteorological Administration (http://www.cma.gov.cn/english/) or can be obtained from the lead author (liqx@cma.gov.cn).
References
Li, Q., H. Zhang, J. Chen, W. Li, X. Liu, and P. Jones, 2009: A Mainland China Homogenized Historical Temperature Dataset of 1951-2004. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 90, 1062-1065