Wet-Dry Runoff Correlation in Western Route of South-to-North Water Diversion Project,China

The Western Route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project is an important trans-basin diversion project to transfer water from the upstream Yangtze River and its tributaries （water-exporting area）, to the upstream of the Yellow River （water- importing area）. The long-term hydrologieal data from 14 stream gauging stations in the Western Route area and techniques including the pre-whitening approach, non-parametric test, Bayes, law, variance analysis extrapolation, and Wavelet Analysis are applied to identify the streamflow eharacteristics and trends, streamflow time series cross-correlations, wetness-dryness encountering probability, and periodicities that occurred over the last 50 years. The results show that the water-exporting area, water- importing area, and the streteh downstream of the water-exporting have synehronization in high-low flow relationship, whereas they display non- synchronization in long-term evolution. This corresponds to the complicated and variable climate of the plateau region. There is no obvious increasing or decreasing trend in runoff at any gauging station. The best hydrological eompensation probability for rivers where water is diverted is about 25% to lO%, and those rivers influenced significantly by diversion are the Jinsha and Yalong rivers. Proper planning and design of compensation reservoirs for the water-exporting area and stretch downstream of the water- exporting area can increase the hydrological compensation possibility from water-exporting area to the water-importing area, and reduce the impact on the stretch of river downstream of the water- exporting area.

Uncertainty in crossing time of 2 °C warming threshold over China

The 2 ℃ warming target has been used widely in global and regional climate change research. Previous studies have shown large uncertainties in the time when surface air temperature （SAT） change over China will reach 2℃ rela- tive to the pre-industrial era. To understand the uncertainties, we analyzed the projected SAT in the twenty-first century using 40 state-of-the-art climate models under two Repre- sentative Concentration Pathways （RCP4.5 and RCPS.5） from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5. The 2℃ threshold-crossing time （TCT） of SAT averaged across China was around 2033 and 2029 for RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively. Considering a 4-1o- range of inter- model SAT change, the upper and lower bounds of the 2 ℃ TCT could differ by about 25 years or even more. Uncer- tainty in the projected SAT and the warming rate around the TCT are the two main factors responsible for the TCT uncertainty. The former is determined by the climate sensi- tivity represented by the global mean surface temperature response. About 45 % of the intermodel variance of the projected 2 ~C TCT for averaged SAT over China can be explained by climate sensitivity across the models, which is contributed mainly by central and southern China. In a cli- mate more sensitive to CO2 forcing, stronger greenhouse effect, less stratus cloud over the East Asian monsoon region, and less snow cover on the Tibetan Plateau result in increased downward longwave radiation, increased shortwave radia- tion, and decreased shortwave radiation reflected by the surface, respectively, all of which may advance the TCT.