Multitime scale variations of sea surface temperature in the China seas based on the HadISST dataset

The variability of the sea surface temperature（SST） in the China seas has been studied in seasonal,interannual and interdecadal scales based on the monthly data of HadISST spanning from 1870 to 2007. The main results obtained are SST in the China offshore changes most actively at the seasonal scale with the intensity diminishing from north to south,as the temperature differences between summer and winter reaching 17 and 4 C in the northern and southern areas,respectively. Moreover,seasonal variation near the coastal regions seems relatively stronger than that far from the coastline;significant interannual variations are detected,with the largest positive anomaly occurring in 1998 in the overall area. But as far as different domains are concerned,there exists great diversity,and the difference is also found between winter and summer. Differed from the seasonal variations,where the strongest interannual variability takes place,resides to the south of that of the seasonal ones in the northern section,nevertheless in the South China Sea,the most significant interannual variability is found in the deep basin;interdecadal changes of summer,winter and annual mean SST in different domains likewise present various features. In addition,a common dominant warming in recent 20 a are found in the overall China offshore with the strongest center located in the vicinity of the Changjiang Estuary in the East China Sea,which intensifies as high as 1.3 C during the past 130 a.

A Floating Astronomical Time Scale for the Early Late Cretaceous Continental Strata in the Songliao Basin, Northeastern China

A continuous terrestrial succession was recovered from the Songke-2(SK-2)borehole in the Songliao Basin,Northeastern China.This borehole provides a unique material for further research on the continental paleoclimate during Cretaceous greenhouse period,following a series of achievements of the Songke-1(SK-1)core.In this study,thorium(Th)logging data were chosen as a paleoclimate proxy to conduct a detailed cyclostratigraphic analysis.The Th series varies quasi-periodically;power spectra and evolutionary fast Fourier transformation(FFT)analysis reveal significant cycles in the Quantou(K2 q),Qingshankou(K2 qn),Yaojia(K2 y)and Nenjiang(K2 n)formations.The ratio of cycle wavelengths in these stratigraphic units is approximately 20:5:2:1,corresponding to long orbital eccentricity(405 kyr),short orbital eccentricity(100 kyr),obliquity(37 kyr),and precession cycles(22.5 kyr and 18.4 kyr).The durations of the K2 n,K2 y,K2 qn and K2 q are estimated as 6.97,1.83,5.30 and 4.52 Myr,respectively,based on the constructed^18.62 Myr"floating"astronomical time scale(ATS).Comparison of the durations between the SK-1 s and SK-2 boreholes exhibits a slight difference of 0.06 Myr and 0.459 Myr for K2 qn and K2 y.Nevertheless,our ATS of K2 n supports the chronostratigraphic frame constructed by the CA-ID-TIMS data of the SK-1 s borehole.This new"floating"ATS provides precise numerical ages for stratigraphic boundaries,biozones and geological events in the Songliao Basin,and can serve as a basis for correlation of strata and events between marine and terrestrial systems.

The evolution of tea spatial agglomeration in China:An analysis based on different geographical scales

The spatial agglomeration of agricultural production is conducive to reducing planting costs, increasing production efficiency and improving product quality. It is an important way to promote the transformation and upgrad of tea industry and realize the modernization of China's tea industry. This study used Gini coefficient and spatial autocorrelation analysis to explore the characteristics of tea spatial agglomeration in China from three geographical scales: regional level, provincial level and prefecture level from the year 2005 to 2015. The results indicated that there was a significant scale effect on the tea spatial agglomeration. The agglomeration degree increased from the regional level, provincial level to prefecture level. The types of spatial agglomeration evolution of the three scales were Ushaped, continuous diffusion, and continuous agglomeration. The spatial autocorrelation of tea production could only be found at the prefecture level. Meanwhile, at the prefecture scale, we could not only reveal the pattern changes at the regional and provincial levels, but also identify tea production agglomeration regions. Compared with the large scale, the small scale could reveal the characteristics of tea spatial agglomeration in more details. Factors such as natural resource endowments, cost factor, technological advancement, agglomeration economy, and agricultural policy influenced the evolution of tea spatial agglomeration from different geographical scales. Finally, from the perspectives of spatial transfer of tea production, promoting spatial agglomeration, building tea production bases, and breaking administrative boundaries, we proposed several policy suggestions for optimizing the spatial layout of tea production.

Assessment of Flood Catastrophe Risk for Grain Production at the Provincial Scale in China Based on the BMM Method

Flood catastrophe risk assessment is imperative for the steady development of agriculture under the context of global climate change,and meanwhile,it is an urgent scientific issue need to be solved in agricultural risk assessment discipline.This paper developed the methodology of flood catastrophe risk assessment,which can be shown as the standard process of crop loss calculation,Monte Carlo simulation,the generalized extreme value distribution（GEV） fitting,and risk evaluation.Data on crop loss were collected based on hectares covered by natural disasters,hectares affected by natural disasters,and hectares destroyed by natural disasters using the standard equation.Monte Carlo simulation based on appropriate distribution was used to expand sample size to overcome the insufficiency of crop loss data.Block maxima model（BMM） approach based on the extreme value theory was for modeling the generalized extreme value distribution（GEV） of flood catastrophe loss,and then flood catastrophe risk at the provincial scale in China was calculated.The Type III Extreme distribution（Weibull） has a weighted advantage of modeling flood catastrophe risk for grain production.The impact of flood catastrophe to grain production in China was significantly serious,and high or very high risk of flood catastrophe mainly concentrates on the central and eastern regions of China.Given the scenario of suffering once-in-a-century flood disaster,for majority of the major-producing provinces,the probability of 10% reduction of grain output is more than 90%.Especially,the probabilities of more than 15% decline in grain production reach up to 99.99,99.86,99.69,and 91.60% respectively in Anhui,Jilin,Liaoning,and Heilongjiang.Flood catastrophe assessment can provide multifaceted information about flood catastrophe risk that can help to guide management of flood catastrophe.

Multi-scale Spatial Patterns and Influencing Factors of Rural Poverty:A Case Study in the Liupan Mountain Region, Gansu Province, China

The important role of spatial scale in exploring the geography of poverty as well as its policy implications has been noticed but with limited knowledge. To improve such limited understanding, we mainly investigated the spatial patterns and influencing factors of rural poverty(indicated by poor population and poverty incidence) at three different administrative levels in the Liupan Mountain Region, one of the fourteen poorest regions in China. Our results show that from a global perspective, poor areas are clustered significantly at the county-, township-, and village-level, and more greatly at a lower level. Locally, there is spatial mismatch among poverty hotspots detected not only by the same indicator at different levels but also by different indicators at the same level. A scale effect can be found in the influencing factors of rural poverty. That is, the number of significant factors increases, but the degree of their association with poverty incidence decreases at a lower level. Such scale effect indicates that poverty incidence at lower levels may be affected by more complex factors, including not only the new local ones but also the already appeared non-local ones at higher levels. However, the natural conditions tend to play a scale-independent role to poverty incidence. In response to such scale-dependent patterns and factors, anti-poverty policies can be 1) a multilevel monitoring system to reduce incomplete or even misleading single-level information and understanding; 2) the village-based targeting strategy to increase the targeting efficiency and alleviate the mentioned spatial mismatch; 3) more flexible strategies responding to the local impoverishing factors, and 4) different task emphasises for multilevel policymakers to achieve the common goal of poverty reduction.

Evolutionary Pattern and Effect of Administrative Division Adjustment During Urbanization of China:Empirical Analysis on Multiple Scales

The adjustment of administrative divisions is one of the important factors guiding China's urbanization, which has profound economic and social effects for regional development. In this paper, we comprehensively describe the process of the adjustment of administrative divisions at provincial and municipal levels in China and summarize the effects on the basic structure and patterns of the spatial development. We quantitatively assess the effects on fields such as urbanization and social economy through the use of multidimensional scaling. The results show that: 1) Upgrading county to municipality(or city-governed district) is the main way of adjusting the administrative divisions. It is also an important factor in the spatial differentiation of interprovincial urbanization. China's population urbanization can be divided into four patterns including interprovincial migration, provincial migration, natural growth, and growth caused by the adjustment of administrative divisions, which is also the main reason for the increased Chinese urbanization rate at the provincial level. 2) Taking the city of Beijing as an example, we generalize five adjustment patterns made to administrative divisions: the set-up of sub-districts, the set-up of regional offices, the upgrading of townships to sub-districts, the upgrading of townships to towns, and the set-up of towns and the addition of new regional offices. We summarize the municipal urban spatial structure, including the sub-district office area in the central urban area, the regional office area in the new urban area, the mixed area of villages, towns, and sub-district offices in the suburb area, and the township area in the outer suburb area. 3) The adjustment of administrative divisions triggers a significant circulative accumulation effect, resulting in the spatial locking of population and industrial agglomeration. It affects the evolution of the urban spatial form and plays an important role in shaping the urban spatial structure to move to the characteristic of multicenter. In general, the adjustment of administrative divisions was an important factor affecting the inflated statistical level of urbanization and also an important driving force for the evolution of Chinese urban spatial organization structure.

Drought Response to Air Temperature Change over China on the Centennial Scale

Climate data from the Climatic Research Unit （CRU） for the period 1901-2013 are used to investigate the drought response to air temperature change over China on the centennial scale. Drought is observed to have increased evidently across China, except for some regions in eastern China. This increase is much stronger in northern China compared to southern China, especially in Northwest and North China. These change characteris- tics of drought are closely associated with air temperature change, with the severe droughts in the major drought episodes of the last century generally coinciding with higher temperatures. The significantly increasing trend of drought in China based on observations only appears when considering the effects of air temperature change, which can explain -49% of droughts in observations and 30%-65% of droughts in Coupled Model Intereomparison Project Phase 5 （CMIP5） model simulations. Furthermore, the response of drought to air temperature change generally increases as the drought time scale increases. Furthermore, drought shows relatively high sensitivity in spring and early summer in China on the centennial scale.

Scale-dependent effects of habitat fragmentation on the genetic diversity of Actinidia chinensis populations in China

Spatial scale partly explains the differentiated effects of habitat fragmentation on plant biodiversity,but the mechanisms remain unclear.To investigate the effects of habitat fragmentation on genetic diversity at different scales,we sampled Actinidia chinensis Planch.at broad and fine scales,China.The broad-scale sampling included five mountain populations and one oceanic island population(Zhoushan Archipelago),and the fine-scale sampling covered 11 lake islands and three neighboring land populations in Thousand-Island Lake(TIL).These populations were genotyped at 30 microsatellite loci,and genetic diversity,gene flow,and genetic differentiation were evaluated.Genetic differentiation was positively related to geographical distance at the broad scale,indicating an isolation-bydistance effect of habitat fragmentation on genetic diversity.The oceanic population differed from the mainland populations and experienced recent bottleneck events,but it showed high gene flow with low genetic differentiation from a mountain population connected by the Yangtze River.At the fine scale,no negative genetic effects of habitat fragmentation were found because seed dispersal with water facilitates gene flow between islands.The population size of A.chinensis was positively correlated with the area of TIL islands,supporting island biogeography theory,but no correlation was found between genetic diversity and island area.Our results highlight the scale-dependent effects of habitat fragmentation on genetic diversity and the importance of connectivity between island-like isolated habitats at both the broad and fine scales.

Developing a Subjective Evaluation Scale for Assessing the Built Environments of China’s Hygienic City Initiative

Objective To develop a preliminary subjective evaluation scale for assessing the built environments of China’s Hygienic City Initiative and to evaluate its reliability and validity.Methods The initial items of the scale were determined based on a review of policy documents and consultations with experts. The final items of the scale were confirmed through individual interviews with residents combined with the discretetrend method, critical ratio method, correlation coefficient method, and factor analysis method. Then, the dimensions of the scale were determined using exploratory factor analysis(EFA). The Cronbach’s α coefficient, split-half reliability coefficient, and confirmatory factor analysis(CFA) were used to assess the reliability and validity of the scale.Results A scale containing five dimensions with 22 items was established, including urban lifestyle,governance, basic functions, environmental sanitation, and amenities. The Cronbach’s α coefficient of the scale was 0.876, and the split-half reliability coefficient was 0.796. The CFA results indicate that each inspection level was within the standard limit.Conclusion The preliminarily subjective evaluation scale for assessing the built environments of China’s Hygienic City Initiative demonstrates a high level of reliability and validity. Additional empirical studies should be carried out to further verify the value of the scale in terms of practical application.

Analysis of Spatial Scale Effect on Urban Resilience:A Case Study of Shenyang,China

Based on urban physical space and theory of landscape ecology,a triune assessment framework—‘size-densitymorphology’—was constructed in order to analyze the spatial pattern and the scale effect of urban resilience in Shenyang of China in 2015,and to explore the main impact factors of landscape under different spatial scale backgrounds.The results show that:1)Urban resilience is an optimal combination of the resilience of size,density,and morphology.The urban resilience of Shenyang displays scale effect;the overall resilience level increases with the increase in scale,while the spatial difference and spatial similarity tend to decrease resilience.2)As 2 km,1 km and 2 km are scale inflection points of average value curves for size resilience,density resilience and morphology resilience,respectively in an urban setting;the optimal scale unit of comprehensive resilience is 1 km.Choosing 1 km–2 km as the basic spatial scale better depicts overall pattern and detailed characteristics of resilience in Shenyang.The spatial amplitudes of 0.5 km and 1 km are sensitive points for spatial autocorrelation of morphology and density resilience,size,and comprehensive resilience to scale effect.3)The major landscape factors of urban size and morphology resilience transform with scale expansion.Aggregation index(AI)has a significant impact on urban resilience at different scales;its influence increases significantly with the increase in scale.4)The high-level area of comprehensive resilience in Shenyang is the eastern ecological corridor area,while the low value area is the peripheral extension area of the city.To promote the overall level of resilience in Shenyang,this paper argues that the construction of ecological infrastructure should be strengthened in the peripheral extension area in a balanced manner.In the city center,population and building density should be controlled;the intensity of human activities should be reduced;impetus should be placed on landscape heterogeneity;and the homogeneous expansion of the area of construction should be prevented.In the eastern ecological corridors,the exploitation of ecosystem lands should be strictly controlled,and the integrity of the green landscape patches should be maintained.

Multi-scales Analysis of Driving Forces on Land Use/Cover Change in China:Taking Farmland Returning to Forest or Grassland as a Case

Increasing populations are causing an increase in food demands, and the area of cultivated land expands every year. Inappropriate land transition from ecology to production results in the constant decline of the ecological security level and influences the regional sustainable development. Adjusting unreasonable land use mode and reconstructing natural land cover are important ways to maintain and improve the ecological environment. Also reclaiming farmland as areas for forests and grasslands (FRFG) is another way. Successful implementation of FRFG in China is the result of comprehensive effect of the multi-scales driving forces. This paper analyses the driving forces of FRFG in China on a national (country) –regional (province) – local (county) – household (farmer) level scale, and the results are: driving forces at the national scale include ecological and food security and the western development of China; at the regional scale, ecological and economic benefits become the main factors to influence the dimension of FRFG under the same policy. The driving forces can be divided into 6 types: industrial structure adjustment, water source protection, flood prevention, the Three-Gorge Project protection, reduction of the amount of sediment flowing into the Yellow River and wind erosion desertification prevention. The driving forces at the local scale can be divided into 12 types with developing leading industries, increasing farmers’ income and improving agricultural production conditions as the main types; at the household scale, the nationalpolicy meeting farmers’ demands and the optimization of individual interests are all driving forces.

Effects of Kuroshio intrusion optimization on the simulation of mesoscale eddies in the northern South China Sea

The impacts of Kuroshio intrusion(KI) optimization on the simulation of meso-scale eddies(MEs) in the northern South China Sea(SCS) were investigated based on an eddy-resolving ocean general circulation model by comparing two numerical experiments with differences in their form and intensity of KI due to the optimizing topography at Luzon Strait(LS). We found that a reduced KI reduces ME activities in the northern SCS, which is similar to the observations. In this case, the biases of the model related to simulating the eddy kinetic energy(EKE) west of the LS and along the northern slope are remarkably attenuated. The reduced EKE modeling bias is associated with both the reduced number of anti-cyclonic eddies(AEs) and the reduced amplitude of cyclonic eddies(CEs). The EKE budget analysis further suggests that the optimization of the KI will change the EKE by changing the horizontal velocity shear and the slope of the thermocline, which are related to barotropic and baroclinic instabilities, respectively. The former plays the key role in regulating the EKE in the northern SCS due to the changing of the KI. The EKE advection caused by the KI is also important for the EKE budget to the west of the LS.

Multi-scale variability of subsurface temperature in the South China Sea

Using Morlet wavelet transform and harmonic analysis the multi-scale variability of subsurface temperature in the South China Sea is studied by analyzing one-year (from April 1998 to April 1999) ATLAS mooring data. By wavelet transform, annual and semi-annual cycle as well as intrasea-sonal variations are found, with different dominance, in subsurface temperature. For annual harmonic cycle, both the downward net surface heat flux and thermocline vertical movement partially control the subsurface temperature variability. For semi-annual cycle and intraseasonal variability, the subsurface temperature variability is mainly linked to the vertical displacement of thermocline.

Rates and fluxes of centennial-scale carbon storage in the fine-grained sediments from the central South Yellow Sea and Min-Zhe belt, East China Sea

The global carbon cycle has played a key role in mitigating global warming and climate change.Long-term natural and anthropogenic processes influence the composition,sources,burial rates,and fluxes of carbon in sediments on the continental shelf of China.In this study,the rates,fluxes,and amounts of carbon storage at the centennial scale were estimated and demonstrated using the case study of three fine-grained sediment cores from the central South Yellow Sea area(SYSA) and Min-Zhe belt(MZB),East China Sea.Based on the high-resolution temporal sequences of total carbon(TC)and total organic carbon(TOC)contents,we reconstructed the annual variations of historical marine carbon storage,and explored the influence of terrestrial and marine sources on carbon burial at the centennial scale.The estimated TC storage over 100 years was 1.18×10~8 t in the SYSA and 1.45×10~9 t in the MZB.The corrected TOC storage fluxes at the centennial scale ranged from 17 to 28 t/(km^2·a)in the SYSA and from 56 to 148 t/(km^2·a)in the MZB.The decrease of terrestrial materials and the increase of marine primary production suggest that the TOC buried in the sediments in the SYSA and MZB was mainly derived from the marine autogenetic source.In the MZB,two depletion events occurred in TC and TOC storage from 1985 to 1987 and 2003 to 2006,which were coeval with the water impoundment in the Gezhouba and Three Gorges dams,respectively.The high-resolution records of the carbon storage rates and fluxes in the SYSA and MZB reflect the synchronous responses to human activities and provide an important reference for assessing the carbon sequestration capacity of the marginal seas of China.

Using Quantile Regression to Detect Relationships between Large-scale Predictors and Local Precipitation over Northern China

Quantile regression（QR） is proposed to examine the relationships between large-scale atmospheric variables and all parts of the distribution of daily precipitation amount at Beijing Station from 1960 to 2008. QR is also applied to evaluate the relationship between large-scale predictors and extreme precipitation（90th quantile） at 238 stations in northern China.Finally, QR is used to fit observed daily precipitation amounts for wet days at four sample stations. Results show that meridional wind and specific humidity at both 850 h Pa and 500 h Pa（V850, SH850, V500, and SH500） strongly affect all parts of the Beijing precipitation distribution during the wet season（April–September）. Meridional wind, zonal wind, and specific humidity at only 850 h Pa（V850, U850, SH850） are significantly related to the precipitation distribution in the dry season（October–March）. Impacts of these large-scale predictors on the daily precipitation amount with higher quantile become stronger, whereas their impact on light precipitation is negligible. In addition, SH850 has a strong relationship with wet-season extreme precipitation across the entire region, whereas the impacts of V850, V500, and SH500 are mainly in semi-arid and semi-humid areas. For the dry season, both SH850 and V850 are the major predictors of extreme precipitation in the entire region. Moreover, QR can satisfactorily simulate the daily precipitation amount at each station and for each season, if an optimum distribution family is selected. Therefore, QR is valuable for detecting the relationship between the large-scale predictors and the daily precipitation amount.

Suitability Analysis of Scale Management in Northeast China Based on Efficiency Evaluation

Under the resource constraint of low per capita possession of cultivated land and the strategic requirements for ensuring national food security,the intensive and efficient use of cultivated land is an important topic for long-term research in China's academic circles. It is an important prerequisite for exploring the moderate scale management of agricultural land. The calculation results of 147 county-level units in Northeast China by DEA method show that in the use efficiency evaluation results of cultivated land of county-level units,the mean values of comprehensive efficiency,pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency were 0. 674,0. 705 and 0. 96,respectively,and the DEA effective units account for about 11%. The effective areas of pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency do not have a high level of superposition. To a certain extent,this also limits the improvement of overall efficiency. In view of the scale of family farmland management,counties and cities with an average per household possession of cultivated land of 1. 71-2. 13 ha can achieve both scale and efficiency through efficiency improvement.

Synoptic-scale disturbances over the northern South China Sea and their responses to El Nio

Using surface and aerological meteorological observations obtained at the Xisha Automatic Weather Station and three moored buoys along the continental slope, characteristics of the synoptic-scale disturbances over the northern South China Sea （NSCS） are extensively studied. The power spectra of surface and aerological observations suggest a synoptic feature with a pronounced energy peak at a period of 5–8 d and a weak peak at 3–4 d. The standard deviation of the synoptic temperature component derived at Xisha Station from 1976 to 2011 indicates that the strongest variability normally exists in August all through the whole troposphere. At the interannual scale, it is found that El Nin o plays an important role in regulating the synoptic disturbances of atmosphere. The vertical synoptic disturbances have a double active peak following El Nin o condition. The first peak usually occurs during the mature phase of El Nin o, and the second one occurs in the summer of decay year. Comparing with the summer of developing years, the summer of the decaying year of El Nin o has more active and stronger synoptic disturbances, especially for the 5–8 d period variations.

Case study on the three-dimensional structure of meso-scale eddy in the South China Sea based on a high-resolution model

Meso-scale eddies are important features in the South China Sea（SCS）. The eddies with diameters of 50–200 km can greatly impact the transport of heat, momentum, and tracers. A high-resolution wave-tide-circulation coupled model was developed to simulate the meso-scale eddy in the SCS in this study. The aim of this study is to examine the model ability to simulate the meso-scale eddy in the SCS without data assimilations The simulated Sea Surface Height（SSH） anomalies agree with the observed the AVISO SSH anomalies well. The simulated subsurface temperature profiles agree with the CTD observation data from the ROSE（Responses of Marine Hazards to climate change in the Western Pacific） project. The simulated upper-ocean currents also agree with the main circulation based on observations. A warm eddy is identified in winter in the northern SCS. The position and domain of the simulated eddy are confirmed by the observed sea surface height data from the AVISO. The result shows that the model has the ability to simulate the meso-scale eddy in the SCS without data assimilation.The three-dimensional structure of the meso-scale eddy in the SCS is analyzed using the model result. It is found that the eddy center is tilted vertically, which agrees with the observation. It is also found that the velocity center of the eddy does not coincide with the temperature center of the eddy. The result shows that the model has the ability to simulate the meso-scale eddy in the SCS without data assimilations. Further study on the forming mechanism and the three-dimensional structure of the meso-scale eddies will be carried out using the model result and cruise observation data in the near future.

ANALYSIS OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE CHINA ANOMALOUS CLIMATE VARIATION AND ENSO CYCLE ON THE QUASI-FOUR-YEAR SCALE

The relationship between the ENSO and abnormal variation of precipitation and temperature in China is investigated based on the monthly data. Firstly, interannual variability of precipitation and temperature are discussed in different sub-areas using Rotational EOF (REOF). Then, the variation of precipitation and temperature in different phases of ENSO cycle is each investigated with Complex Singular Value Decomposition (CSVD). Results show that, during the period of El Nio, precipitation in the eastern China, especially in the northeastern China and Yangtze River valley, is much more than normal and is apt to flood. Precipitation in northern China and Huanghe River valley, especially in the middle reach of Huanghe River, is less than normal and is apt to be less. Precipitation in the Yangtze River valley is closely related to the SSTA in the central and eastern tropical Pacific on the QFO scale, and the precipitation variation lags behind SSTA by about 3 months. For the variation of surface temperature, during the period of El Nio, it is usually colder than normal in northeastern China, and in other regions, especially in the region of Great Bend of the Yellow River and southwestern China, is warmer than normal. The temperature in northeast China is closely associated with SSTA in eastern Pacific on the QFO scale and the surface temperature variation in the northeast China lags behind that of SSTA about 2 months.