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Spatiotemporal change in the climatic growing season in Northeast China during 1960–2009

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Abstract

Daily mean air temperatures from 81 meteorological stations in Northeast China were analyzed for the spatiotemporal change of the climatic growing season during the period 1960–2009. Our results showed that latitude strongly influenced the spatial patterns of the mean start (GSS), end (GSE), and length (GSL) of the growing season. For the area studied, a significant increasing trend in GSL during 1960–2009 was detected at a significance level of 0.01, especially after the early 1980s. The area-average GSL has extended 13.3 days during the last 50 years, mainly due to the advanced GSS evident in the spring (7.9 days). The variations of GSS and GSE were closely correlated with the monthly mean temperature (T mean) of April and October, respectively, while GSL was closely related to the monthly minimum temperatures (T min) of spring (March to April) and autumn (September to October). The distributions of the trends in growing season parameters (GSS, GSE, and GSL) showed great spatial variability over Northeast China. Significant relationships between altitude and the trend rates of the GSS and GSL were detected, while geographic parameters had little direct effect on the change in GSE. This extended growing season may provide favorable conditions for agriculture and forest, and improve their potential production.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. 41171067 and 40871055), and the Special Basic Research Program of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology of China (no. 2011FY110300). The authors would like to thank the reviewers for their invaluable suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Process and Resource Ecology; College of Resources Science and Technology, Beijing Normal University, No.19, Xinjiekouwai Street, Beijing, 100875, China

    Man-yu Dong & Yuan Jiang

  2. State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Process and Resource Ecology; College of Life Science, Beijing Normal University, No.19, Xinjiekouwai Street, Beijing, 100875, China

    Da-yong Zhang

  3. College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Northeast Normal University, No.5268, Renmin Street, Changchun, 130024, China

    Zheng-fang Wu

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  1. Man-yu Dong
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  2. Yuan Jiang
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  3. Da-yong Zhang
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  4. Zheng-fang Wu
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Correspondence to Yuan Jiang.

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Dong, My., Jiang, Y., Zhang, Dy. et al. Spatiotemporal change in the climatic growing season in Northeast China during 1960–2009. Theor Appl Climatol 111, 693–701 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-012-0706-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-012-0706-y

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