Climate change affected the spatio-temporal occurrence of disasters in China over the past five centuries.

ABSTRACT: Climate change may contribute to the spatio-temporal occurrence of disasters. Long-term studies of either homogeneous or heterogeneous responses of historical disasters to climate change are, however, limited by the quality and quantity of the available proxy data. Here we reconstruct spatio-temporal patterns of five types of disasters in China during the period AD 1368-1911. Our analyses of these time series reveal that warmer temperatures decreased the occurrence of disasters in the monsoon-affected parts of central-east China, but it increased the frequency and intensity of disasters along the boundary of arid and humid conditions in parts of southwest and northeast China, probably driven by the interplay among monsoon, westerlies, polar vortex and variation of temperature. Moreover, we

SUBMITTER: Yan C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8074577 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature