Effects of drought climate on the photosynthesis of Aneurolepidium chinense community in the typical steppe region of Inner Mongolia

Under the dry weather conditions in the typical steppe region of Inner Mongolia, the diurnal change curve of photosynthetic rate of Aneurolepidium chinense community is a curve of 'double peaks' with midday depression. The photosynthetic rate in the morning is height than in the afternoon, which is related to the water condition at that time. The decrease range of community photosynthetic rate at noon is closely correlated with the low air relative humidity and soil moisture, the photosynthetic rate decreases less under better water condition.The instantaneous photosynthetic rate and diurnal net photosynthesis declined in dry condition, but they rised after irrigation or nitrogen-fertilization. Thus irrigation and fertilization is a effective way to improve grasslands and to raise grassland productivity.

Grassland-type ecosystem stability in China differs under the influence of drought and wet events

Ecological stability is a core issue in ecological research and holds significant implications forhumanity. The increased frequency and intensity of drought and wet climate events resulting from climatechange pose a major threat to global ecological stability. Variations in stability among different ecosystemshave been confirmed, but it remains unclear whether there are differences in stability within the sameterrestrial vegetation ecosystem under the influence of climate events in different directions and intensities.China's grassland ecosystem includes most grassland types and is a good choice for studying this issue.This study used the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index-12 (SPEI-12) to identify thedirections and intensities of different types of climate events, and based on Normalized DifferenceVegetation Index (NDVI), calculated the resistance and resilience of different grassland types for 30consecutive years from 1990 to 2019 (resistance and resilience are important indicators to measurestability). Based on a traditional regression model, standardized methods were integrated to analyze theimpacts of the intensity and duration of drought and wet events on vegetation stability. The resultsshowed that meadow steppe exhibited the highest stability, while alpine steppe and desert steppe had thelowest overall stability. The stability of typical steppe, alpine meadow, temperate meadow was at anintermediate level. Regarding the impact of the duration and intensity of climate events on vegetationecosystem stability for the same grassland type, the resilience of desert steppe during drought was mainlyaffected by the duration. In contrast, the impact of intensity was not significant. However, alpine steppewas mainly affected by intensity in wet environments, and duration had no significant impact. Ourconclusions can provide decision support for the future grassland ecosystem governance.

Features of Climate Change in Northwest China during 1961-2010

In this study, observational data from 141 meteorological stations in Northwest China, including temperature, precipitation, dust storm, gale days and wind speed, were analyzed statistically to gain insight of the features of basic climate index and extreme climate events. The results showed that the annual mean temperature and seasonal mean temperature rose significantly, and the rising rate of the annual mean temperature is 0.27℃ per decade; the extreme high temperature days have increased; the interdecadal change of annual precipitation is marked, and the precipitation in winter and summer increased slightly, while decreased slightly in spring and autumn. The annual precipitation increased in the area west of the Yellow River, whereas decreased in the area east of the river. The drought had an increasing trend. There were 17 droughts during 1961-2010, and 10 droughts from 1991 to 2010. The number of droughts in spring and autumn increased, while decreased in summer.

Tree-ring reconstruction of streamflow for Palgong Mountain forested watershed in southeastern South Korea

Tree-ring chronologies from pine,oak and black locust tree species were used to reconstruct annual streamflow and examine hydrological drought years for Palgong Mountain forested watershed in southeastern South Korea for the period from 1954-2015. The backward elimination multiple regression analysis provided the statistically significant predictor chronologies of streamflow. The final calibration and verification test models accounted for 84.8% and 81.6%,respectively,of the variability in streamflow observed in the gage data. Further verification of the validity of the reconstructed model was undertaken with the Pearson Correlation Coefficient,the Reduction of Error Test,and the Durbin-Watson Statistics and indicated fidelity of the model for reconstructing the annual streamflow. Analyses of the reconstructed annual streamflow indicate that the most persistent years of high flows above the median annual discharge occurred from 1986-2008.This period included 7 single or multiple years of highest flow above the 90 th percentile discharge and multiple years of high flows with a time interval of 2-6 years,although with intervening multiple years of low flows below the 10 th and 50 th percentile. In comparison,the most persistent years of low flows below the median annual discharge occurred from 1954-1985 and 2009-2015. This period included 8 single or multiple years of lowest flow below the 10 th percentiledischarge and multiple years of low flows with a time interval of 2-9 years,although also with intervening multiple years of high flows above the 50 th percentile. No single years of extreme hydrological droughts below the 10 th percentile were identified from 1986-2015 whereas a greater proportion of high flows above the 90 th percentile occurred during this period. The persistent single or multiple years of lowest flows between 1954 and 1985 were the recent most critical hydrological drought years identified in the Palgong Mountain forested watershed providing supportive evidence of the severity of past hydrological droughts during that period,applicable to the southeastern South Korea where the study watershed is located. This interpretation agrees with the hydrological drought event years identified from 1951 to the early 1980 s in a related national study that used precipitation proxy data to reconstruct past occurrences of droughts in Korea.

Low-frequency variability of terrestrial water budget in China using GRACE satellite measurements from 2003 to 2010

Mass variations in terrestrial water storage（TWS） obtained from eight years of satellite data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment（GRACE） are used to describe low frequency TWS through Empirical Orthogonal Function（EOF） analysis. Results of the second seasonal EOF mode show the influence of the Meiyu season. Annual variability is clearly shown in the precipitation distribution over China, and two new patterns of interannual variability are presented for the first time from observations, where two periods of abrupt acceleration are seen in 2004 and 2008. GRACE successfully measures drought events in southern China, and in this respect, an association with the Arctic Oscillation and El Nino-Southern Oscillation is discussed. This study demonstrates the unique potential of satellite gravity measurements in monitoring TWS variations and large-scale severe drought in China.