WHERE AND WHEN DID AN ABRUPT CLIMATIC-CHANGE OCCUR IN CHINA DURING THE LAST 43 YEARS

A climatic regionalization of the atmospheric drought indices (ADI) in both winter and summer over China was carried out utilizing orthogona lly rotated principal component (RPC) analysis. An abrupt climatic cha nge in the last 43 years was identified with the Mann-Kendall test, th e sequential t-test, and the criterion of signal/noise for time series of the regional ADI in winter and summer. The results obtained with t hree statistic tests were also compared. It is found that a drought in winter persisted for almost 21 years from around 1972, and a slightly persistent drought in summer started from around 1961 in the Northern part of China. In addition, a summer climatic jump to a drought appea red around 1979 in South China. However, a weak abrupt change from dro ught to a wet spell in summer occurred around 1970 in Middle China dur ing the period from 1959 to 1984.