global warming

drought disaster-causing factors

anomaly

Southwest and South China

southwestern and southern

China

Climate changes

Climatology

In this study, taking drought disaster-causing factors like precipitation, temperature, reference evapotranspiration, and the degree of drought severity based on the drought index as study objects, the characteristics of these above elements against the background of global warming were analyzed by using the method of climate statistics. The data include a variety of climate observations of 129 meteorological stations in southwestern and southern China from 1961 to 2012. The results show that over the past half century sustained temperature increase has been presented in the study area against the background of global warming. However, there is still a sharp warming point (mutation point) of temperature time series that occurred in 1994 during 1961 to 2012 according to the Mann-Kendal test. In other words, the past half century could be divided into two episodes with the year 1994 as the boundary: the first period (i.e. the period before significant temperature rise) from 1961 to 1994, and the second period (i.e. the period after significant temperature rise) from 1995 to 2012. In order to highlight the effects that result from obvious warming, a comparison of the above factors between the two episodes and the trend of these factors in the two episodes are analyzed. This shows that, during the period after significant temperature rise, the study area has experienced a significant downward trend in precipitation and a decline in reference evapotranspiration, but a rise in its change trend, and more serious degree of drought severity due to the impact of less precipitation and higher temperatures.