Spatial and temporal patterns of the sensitivity of radial growth response by Picea schrenkiana to regional climate change in the Tianshan Mountains

Climate change significantly impacts forest ecosystems in arid and semi-arid regions.However,spatiotemporal patterns of climate-sensitive changes in individual tree growth under increased climate warming and precipitation in north-west China is unclear.The dendrochronological method was used to study climate response sensitivity of radial growth of Picea schrenkiana from 158 trees at six sites during 1990-2020.The results show that climate warming and increased precipitation significantly promoted the growth of trees.The response to temperature first increased,then decreased.However,the response to increased precipitation and the self-calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index(scPDSI)increased significantly.In most areas of the Tianshan Mountains,the proportion of trees under increased precipitation and scPDSI positive response was relatively high.Over time,small-diameter trees were strongly affected by drought stress.It is predicted that under continuous warming and increased precipitation,trees in most areas of the Tianshan Mountains,especially those with small diameters,will be more affected by precipitation.

Simulation of Effects of Land Use Change on Climate in China by a Regional Climate Model

Climate effects of land use change in China as simulated by a regional climate model (RegCM2) are investigated. The model is nested in one-way mode within a global coupled atmosphere-ocean model (CSIRO R21L9 AOGCM). Two multi-year simulations, one with current land use and the other with potential vegetation cover, are conducted. Statistically significant changes of precipitation, surface air temperature, and daily maximum and daily minimum temperature are analyzed based on the difference between the two simulations. The simulated effects of land use change over China include a decrease of mean annual precipitation over Northwest China, a region with a prevalence of arid and semi-arid areas; an increase of mean annual surface air temperature over some areas; and a decrease of temperature along coastal areas. Summer mean daily maximum temperature increases in many locations, while winter mean daily minimum temperature decreases in East China and increases in Northwest China. The upper soil moisture decreases significantly across China. The results indicate that the same land use change may cause different climate effects in different regions depending on the surrounding environment and climate characteristics.

Regional Variability of Climate Change Hot-Spots in East Asia

The regional climate change index （RCCI） is employed to investigate hot-spots under 21st century global warming over East Asia. The RCCI is calculated on a 1-degree resolution grid from the ensemble of CMIP3 simulations for the B1, AIB, and A2 IPCC emission scenarios. The RCCI over East Asia exhibits marked sub-regional variability. Five sub-regional hot-spots are identified over the area of investigation： three in the northern regions （Northeast China, Mongolia, and Northwest China）, one in eastern China, and one over the Tibetan Plateau. Contributions from different factors to the RCCI are discussed for the sub-regions. Analysis of the temporal evolution of the hot-spots throughout the 21st century shows different speeds of response time to global warming for the different sub-regions. Hot-spots firstly emerge in Northwest China and Mongolia. The Northeast China hot-spot becomes evident by the mid of the 21st century and it is the most prominent by the end of the century. While hot-spots are generally evident in all the 5 sub-regions for the A1B and A2 scenarios, only the Tibetan Plateau and Northwest China hot-spots emerge in the B1 scenario, which has the lowest greenhouse gas （GHG） concentrations. Our analysis indicates that subregional hot-spots show a rather complex spatial and temporal dependency on the GHG concentration and on the different factors contributing to the RCCI.

Quantitative Assessment of Impacts of Regional Climate and Human Activities on Saline-alkali Land Changes:A Case Study of Qian'an County,Jilin Province

Interdecadal and interannuat variations of saline-alkali land area in Qian＇an County, Jilin Province, China were comprehensively analyzed in this paper by means of satellite remote sensing interpretation, field flux observations and regional climate diagnosis. The results show that on the interannual scale, the impact of climate factors accounts for 71.6% of the total variation of the saline-alkali land area, and that of human activities accounts for 28.4%. Therefore the impact of climate factors is obviously greater than that of human activities. On the interdecadal scale, the impact of climate factors on the increase of the saline-alkali land area accounts for 43.2%, and that of human activities accounts for 56.8%. The impact of human activities on the variation of saline-alkali land area is very clear on the interdecadal scale, and the negative impact of human activities on the environment should not be negligible. Besides, changes in the area of heavy saline-alkali land have some indication for development of saline-alkali land in Qian＇an County.

Research on the Dynamic Change of Regional Stress Fields before the M_S8.0 Wenchuan Earthquake

Using the digital telemetric seismic waveform data of Chengdu and Kunming, this article studies the focal mechanism solutions and the apparent stress values of a large number of small earthquakes, and then analyzes the dynamic variation of regional stress fields and the spatio- temporal distribution of apparent stress values. The annual variation values of the azimuth of average principal stress field before the May 12, 2008 Ms8.0 Wenchuan earthquake in the Sichuan-Yunnan region were 58° from 2003 to 2004, 85° from 2003 to 2005,61° from 2006 to 2007 and 90° from 2006 to April 2008 respectively. In recent years, deflection or disturbances occurred in the azimuth of the average principal stress field in the Sichuan-Yunnan region. Analysis shows that this may be related to the change of stress field states of crustal blocks before and after the December 26, 2004 Ms9.0 Sumatra earthquake and the 2008 Ms8.0 Wenchuan earthquake. The ratio of thrust-type earthquakes in the Sichnan-Qinghai block was on the higher side in the period from 2006 to 2007, and the source faulting type of the regional moderate and small earthquakes had changed before the Ms8.0 Wenchnan earthquake. The change of state of the stress field is consistent with the changes in block displacement fields revealed by GPS data and the crustal shortening velocity vertical to the Longmenshan fault zone. Based on the radiation energy calculated from all bands of the seismic waveform, the value of apparent stress σapp is obtained. The fluctuation shape of the fitting trend of the apparent stress is related to the intensity of regional seismicity. It reveals that the micro- dynamic fluctuation process of the regional stress value is similar to the azimuth transition of the regional principal compressive stress field, which can be used to probe for pregnant physical processes. Areas with a higher value of apparent stress σapp are possible areas of potential seismic risk. It can be seen from the spatial distribution of the medium and shortterm apparent stress σapp before the Ms8.0 Wenchuan earthquake, the Longmenshan fault zone is in a low stress distribution area, and the relatively high apparent stress is in the peripheral area. These images may show medium and short-term locking phenomena near the seismogenic tectonics of the Ms8.0 Wenchuan earthquake. For example, changes with time of the focal parameter consistency of the sub-blocks in Sichuan and Yunnan Provinces, continual increase of thrust-type earthquakes in the Sichuan-Qinghai block and the appearance of spatial distribution areas of high apparent σapp stress. The work on this aspect was continued after the Ms8.0 Wenchuan earthquake, and the results seem to be shown a clearer relationship between these phenomena and future great earthquakes.

Land-use changes in the small watershed of the Loess Plateau,hilly-gully region, China

As more and more farmland is converted to forestry, the need for effective decision support regarding the use of land in the fragile ecological environment of the Loess Plateau hilly-gully area. The Luoyugou watershed was chosen as the study area to calculate the single dynamic degree, integrated dynamic degree, and change indexes of land use, as well as the land-use type transition matrix. This was done by interpreting the TM and SPOT images of the Luoyugou watershed in 1986, 1995, and2004 and making statistical analysis. The results of ou statistical analysis show that the conversion of slope farm land to terrace and forest land plays a dominant role in land-use changes in the Luoyugou watershed from 1986 to2004. The land-use changes are mainly driven by popula tion growth, socio-economic development, consume spending, and investment in forest ecology.

SPARC Local Workshop on “WCRP Grand Challenges and Regional Climate Change”

1.Overview SPARC（Stratosphere-Troposphere Processes and their Role in Climate）is one of the core projects of the World Climate Research Program（WCRP）,coordinating international efforts to address relevant issues in climate and climate prediction via better understanding of the stratosphere-troposphere system.

Changes of evoked potential in different hippocampal regions induced by electrostimulation at medial mamillary nucleus of rats

BACKGROUND： Morphological data have shown that the most important afferent fibers of papillary body come from hippocampal structure.OBJECTIVE： To observe the changes of evoked potential in hippocampus and the significance after electrostimulation at medial mamillary nucleus. DESIGN： An observational control experiment.SETTING： Department of Physiology, Shenyang Medical College.MATERIALS ： Twenty-three male or female Wistar rats, 3-4 months old, weighing 270-350 g, were provided by bhe animal room of Shenyang Medical College [the license number was scxk（Liao）2003-0016]. METHODS： The Wistar rats were anaesthetized by intraperintoneal injection of 20% urethane （1 g/kg）, tracheal intubation was also given. The self-made double-pole metal stimulating electrode with the point diameter of 1 mm was inserted into medial mamillary nucleus, the wanted hippocampal guidance spot was found within the rang of the hippocampal region at the same side of tee mamillary body range （CA1-CA4）, inserted with same-core guidance electrode, a sole square-wave stimulation of wave wide 0.2 ms stimulated with electrodes at the applied intensity of 7-9 V, the evoked potential was induced through guidance electrodes, and then input to the ATAC-350 data-processing machine for memory showing wave processing, the memory recorded wave recording graph was separately drawn up by the X-Y recording instrument to observe the latency, time procedure and amplitude of the evoked potential in each hippocampal region of the rats and calculate the percentage of the evoked potential in each hippocampal region. Totally 78 guidance spots in hippocampus were recorded, including 30 positive reaction spots and 48 negative ones. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES： ① Latency, time procedure and amplitude of the evoked potentials in each hippocampal region of rats; ②percentage of the evoked potentials in each hippocampal region; ③ the wave shapes of the evoked potentials in each hippocampal region from different arrangement in the same positive reaction spot. RESULTS ：① Of the 30 recorded positive reactions, 9 positive spots fused into the stimulated false marks because of the short latency. The analysis of variance showed that the latency had significant difference （P 〈 0.05）, time procedure had highly significant difference （P 〈 0.01 ）, but there was no significant difference in the amplitude （P 〉 0.05） among the hippampal regions.② Among the 30 positive spots, the percentage of evoked potential in the hippocampal regions were 34.5% for CA1, 2.0% for CA2, 24.1% for CA3 and 22.4% for CA4. ③ In different levels of the same positive spot, different changes of the evoked potential wave shapes could be observed, and the most obvious change was that of positive wave amplitude. At different positive spots, evoked potentials of positive phase, negative and the double-phase could be observed. CONCLUSION： There are nerve associations between mamillary body and hippocampus, afferent fibers of mamillary body come from hippocampal CA1 region are a little more.

REGIONAL ECONOMY Chongqing Tells Story of Changes on First Anniversary as Municipality

In early spring, this reporter visited Chongqing, China’s youngest municipality. Having been promoted to the status of a municipality for just a little more than a year, this mountain dry has seen great changes: more bridges have been built, roads have been widened, and streets have become better lit. Although there are still a lot of difficulties, the trend of development is promising.

STATUS OF PACIFIC REGION IN GLOBAL CHANGE——An Analysis of the X VIII Pacific Science Congress

Last June more than one thousand scientists from over 50 countries in the Pacific and other regions of the world gathered in Beijing of China and participated in the ⅩⅤⅢ Pacific Science Congress. This was an international general academic congress which had involved natural science, social science, engineering science,

Changes in China's Regional Development Strategy and FDI Policy in Western Region

Chinahaswitnessedremarkableeconomicachievementssinceinitiatingitsreformandopening-uppolicyin1979.However,thewesternregion,coveringsome56percentofChina'sterritoryandaccountingfor50percentofveritieddepositsofmineralresources,hasnotenjoyedthesamedegreeo...

Spatial variability of glacial changes and their effects on water resources in the Chinese Tianshan Mountains during the last five decades

Changes in glaciers in the Chinese Tianshan Mountains have been analyzed previously. However, most previous studies focused on individual glaciers and/or decentralized glacial basins. Moreover, a majority of these studies were published only in Chinese, which limited their usefulness at the international level. With this in mind, the authors reviewed the previous studies to create an overview of glacial changes in the Chinese Tianshan Mountains over the last five decades and discussed the effects of glacial changes on water resources. In response to climate change, glaciers in the Tianshan Mountains are shrinking rapidly and are ca. 20% smaller on average in the past five decades. Overall, the area reduction of glacial basins in the central part of the Chinese Tianshan Mountains is larger than that in the eastern and western parts. The spatial differentiation in glacial changes are caused by both differences in regional climate and in glacial factors. The effects of glacial changes on water resources vary in different river basins due to the differences in glacier distribution, characteristics of glacial change and proportion of the glacier meltwater in river runoff.

A Simulation Study on Climatic Effects of Land Cover Change in China

The regional climate model RegCM4 was used to investigate the regional climate effects of land cover change over China. Two 24-year simulations （1978-2001）, one with the land cover derived from the MODIS data and the other with the CLCV （Chinese land cover derived from vegetation map） data, were conducted for a region encompassing China. The differences between the MODIS and CLCV data reflect characteristics of desertification and degradation of vegetation in China. Results indicate that the land cover change has important impacts on local climate through mechanisms related to changes in surface energy, water budgets and macro-scale circulation. In summer, the land cover change leads to a decrease in surface air temperature over southern China, a reduction in precipitation and an increase in surface air temperature in the transitional climate zone and the northern Tibetan Plateau, and an increase in inter-annual variability of surface air temperature in the marginal monsoon zone and northwestern China. Strengthened southwesterly winds increase precipitation to some extent in central and eastern Inner Mongolia by enhancing water vapor transport. In winter, enhanced northerly winds, bringing more dry and cold air, lead to a reduction in precipitation and temperature over areas south of the Yellow River.

Advancing Climate Dynamics Toward Reliable Regional Climate Projections

With a scientific consensus reached regarding the anthropogenic effect on global mean temperature, developing reliable regional climate projections has emerged as a new challenge for climate science. A national project was launched in China in 2012 to study ocean's role in regional climate change. This paper starts with a review of recent advances in the study of regional climate re-sponse to global warming, followed by a description of the Chinese project including the rationale, objectives, and plan for field ob-servations. The 15 research articles that follow in the special issue are highlighted, representing some of the initial results from the project.

Land cover change in different altitudes of Guizhou-Guangxi karst mountain area, China： patterns and drivers

Topography, especially altitude, will influence the way, process and characteristics of land cover changes in mountainous area, simultaneously, the vertical difference of land cover changes will affect soil quality and regional ecological environment. Therefore, the gradient relationship analysis between land cover changes and altitude is very important for regional sustainability. This study investigated land cover dynamics based on land cover data from a typical mountainous area in the Guizhou-Guangxi karst mountain area, China, in 2000 and 2010, then explored the relationship between altitude and land cover change and analyzed different drivers of land cover change at different altitudes. Our findings are as follows. 1) From 2000 to 2010, the total area of land cover transition was 7167.04 km^2 or 2.8% of the region. The increasing area of build-up land(926.23 km^2) was larger than that of forest(859.38 km^2), suggesting that the urban construction speed was higher than that of reforestation. 2) Intensity of land cover transition in northwestern Guizhou-Guangxi karst mountain area was much larger than that of southeast part and their transition trend was also significantly different, which was consistent with regional population and economy. 3) Human activity was the most dramatic at altitudes between 0–500 m. For 500–1000 m, grassland mainly converted to forest and build-up land. Area of land cover transition was the greatest between 1000–1500 m, while above 1500 m, the transition of grassland was the most obvious. 4) The drivers of land cover change varied. Land cover change was positively correlated with gross domestic product and population density but was inversely related to relief amplitude. There were correlations between land cover change and distance to roads and rivers, and their correlations varied with altitude. By revealing patterns and causes of land cover changes in different altitudes, we hope to understand the vertical dependence of land cover changes, so as to improve land productivity and protect land ecological environment scientifically.

Spatial assessment of forest cover and land-use changes in the Hindu-Kush mountain ranges of northern Pakistan

Anthropogenic activities and natural processes are continuously altering the mountainous environment through deforestation, forest degradation and other land-use changes. It is highly important to assess, monitor and forecast forest cover and other land-use changes for the protection and conservation of mountainous environment. The present study deals with the assessment of forest cover and other land-use changes in the mountain ranges of Dir Kohistan in northern Pakistan, using high resolution multi-temporal SPOT-5 satellite images. The SPOT-5 satellite images of years 2004, 2007, 2010 and 2013 were acquired and classified into land-cover units. In addition, forest cover and land-use change detection map was developed using the classified maps of 2004 and 2013. The classified maps were verified through random field samples and Google Earth imagery(Quick birds and SPOT-5). The results showed that during the period 2004 to 2013 the area of forest land decreased by 6.4%, however, area of range land and agriculture land have increased by 22.1% and 2.9%, respectively. Similarly, barren land increased by 1.1%, whereas, area of snow cover/glacier is significantly decreased by 21.3%. The findings from the study will be useful for forestry and landscape planning and can be utilized by the local, provincial and national forest departments; and REDD+ policy makers in Pakistan.

Diageneses and Their Influences on Reservoir Properties of Chang 2 Oil Member in Renshan Region, Zhidan Oilfield, Ordos Basin

1 Introduction Yanchang Formation in Upper Triassic,Ordos basin contains the most abundant hydrocarbon resources in North China(Wang et al.,2014).The sandstones are the most important oil-bearing reservoirs in Yanchang

Scale-dependent Regional Climate Predictability over North America Inferred from CMIP3 and CMIP5 Ensemble Simulations

Through the analysis of ensembles of coupled model simulations and projections collected from CMIP3 and CMIP5, we demonstrate that a fundamental spatial scale limit might exist below which useful additional refinement of climate model predictions and projections may not be possible. That limit varies among climate variables and from region to region. We show that the uncertainty（noise） in surface temperature predictions（represented by the spread among an ensemble of global climate model simulations） generally exceeds the ensemble mean（signal） at horizontal scales below 1000 km throughout North America, implying poor predictability at those scales. More limited skill is shown for the predictability of regional precipitation. The ensemble spread in this case tends to exceed or equal the ensemble mean for scales below 2000 km. These findings highlight the challenges in predicting regionally specific future climate anomalies, especially for hydroclimatic impacts such as drought and wetness.

Spatial-temporal Evolution and Driving Force of Cultivated Land Quality in Henan Province

The purpose of this study was to find out the spatial-temporal rules and driving force of cultivated land quality in Henan Province in the last ten years. Agricultural land grading factor evaluation was used to evaluate the cultivated land quality of 2002 and 2012 in Henan Province, and to research the change laws. Method of correlation coefficient was employed to select the driving forces affecting cultivated land quality evolution. The results indicated that the cultivated land quality in Henan Province increased slightly in the last ten years in general, and in spatial there were unchanged regions, increased regions and decreased regions. The cultivated land quality in spatial presented the trend of good becoming better, bad becoming worse, which should be highly valued in cultivated land quality protection and management. Land development and consolidation projects had significant contributions to increasing the cultivated land quality. Driving forces between the sudden change regions and gradual change regions were significantly different. The paper concluded that the research on the spatial-temporal evolution and driving force of cultivated land quality based on cultivated land quality evolution had important academic significance and practical value.