Abstract:

Objective: As a special forest type in China, bamboo forest is susceptible to extreme climate. It is of great significance to examine the spatiotemporal patterns of extreme climate events in China’s bamboo forests, which can unveil the spatial differentiation and temporal change patterns and thus provide a reference to cope with extreme climate events in the future. Method: In this paper, based on the meteorological data from 1960 to 2020, we used the China Weather Generator (NCC/GU-WG Version 2.0) to forecast the meteorological data from 2021 to 2050, and calculate the commonly used 10 extreme climate indices related to bamboo growth by RClimDex software. Then accumulative anomalies, Sen trend, Mann-Kendall test, and Kriging interpolation were employed to study the spatiotemporal distribution of extreme climate and its change in China’s bamboo forests. Result: From 1960 to 2050, number of hot summer days, maximum values of daily maximum and daily minimum temperatures, minimum values of daily maximum and daily minimum temperatures increased by 3.52 d, 0.15 ℃, 0.21 ℃, 0.26 ℃ , and 0.4 ℃ every 10 years, respectively, while frost days decreased 1.79 d every 10 years, and the aforementioned extreme temperature indices had abrupt changes around 2000. Maximum daily precipitation, maximum five-day precipitation, heavy precipitation, and average annual daily precipitation intensity increased by 1.58 mm, 2.13 mm, 12.99 mm , and 0.2 mm?d^?1 every 10 years, respectively, and all the extreme precipitation indices had abrupt changes around 1994. Spatially, the low-value areas of maximum value of daily maximum and daily minimum temperatures representing extreme high temperatures, and high-value areas of frost days were mainly located in the monopodial bamboo areas at high inland latitude. The minimum value of daily maximum and daily minimum temperatures representing extreme low temperatures were larger throughout the region, the high-value areas of summer days were located in bamboo forest areas at low latitudes, and the high-value areas of extreme precipitation lied in the southern and coastal regions. Conclusion: Both temperature and precipitation extremes are significantly increasing in China’s bamboo forest. Monopodial bamboo areas located in high inland latitude might be vulnerable to extreme low temperature events, while the bamboo forest at low latitudes is more likely to suffer from both drought and flood disasters, and the mixed bamboo areas of Sichuan encountering extreme temperature and precipitation events are both relatively high.

Key words: monopodial bamboo, mixed bamboo, sympodial bamboo, extreme temperature, extreme precipitation, spatial distribution