Fronts and cyclones associated with changes in the total and extreme precipitation over China

Abstract Precipitation in China is controlled by a combination of multiple weather systems and is susceptible to their spatio-temporal variability under climate warming. Based on the daily precipitation dataset developed by the China Meteorological Administration and ERA5 6-hourly reanalysis data ranging from 1979-2018, we detected tropical cyclones, extratropical cyclones and fronts affecting Mainland China of an altitude less than 1500 m using objective methods and identified their individually associated precipitation. We quantified climatological characteristics of precipitation associated with these three meteorological causes and their proportion of precipitation totals, and evaluated their relative contribution to change in precipitation. Results show that precipitation associated with tropical cyclones (TCP), extratropical cyclones (ETCP), and fronts (FRTP) accounted for 3.0%, 21.2%, and 20.4% of the total precipitation in China, and occupied the largest percentage in August, June, and January, respectively. The total proportion of these three types of precipitation exceeded 50% in more than 55% of China’s regions. The high-value regions of corresponding precipitation were directly related to the locations of frequent occurrences of these weather systems. TCP and FRTP increased over the past four decades, while ETCP decreased. The west of Northeast China and the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River shows precipitation decrease and 37.8% of which is contributed by ETCP decreases. Precipitation increased in most regions of China during the dry season and 34.1% of which is contributed by FRTP increases. Among them, the Northeast (Northwest) of China significantly increased by 14.4% decade−1 (21.8% decade−1) and 33.6% (51.3%) of which is contributed by FRTP increases.