State Key Laboratory of Hydraulics and Mountain River Engineering, College of Water Resource and Hydropower, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China.
School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Jan 16;18(2):745. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18020745.
Warming has strongly influenced the quantity and variability of natural disasters around the globe. This study aims to characterize the varying patterns between rising temperatures and climate-related natural disasters in China from 1951 to 2010. We examined the overall trend in the patterns of an 11-year cycle, and climate-related natural disaster responses to periods of rising and dropping temperature. We used Morlet wavelet analysis to determine the length of a temperature cycle period, and the arc elasticity coefficient to assess the number of climate-related natural disasters in response to the changing temperature. We found that: (1) the overall relationship between temperature and the number of climate-related natural disasters was positive; (2) however, on the cycle level, the pattern of climate-related natural disasters was found to be independent of temperature variation; (3) on the rise-drop level, temperature increases were associated with declines in the number of climate-related natural disasters. Moreover, as temperature decreased, the number of climate-related natural disasters increased substantially, such that temperature had a more considerable influence on the quantity of climate-related natural disasters during the temperature-drop period. Findings in this study can help enhance the dissemination of warning and mitigation efforts to combat natural disasters in the changing climate.
变暖强烈影响了全球自然灾害的数量和变异性。本研究旨在从 1951 年到 2010 年描述中国不断上升的气温与气候相关自然灾害之间变化模式的特征。我们研究了 11 年周期模式的总体趋势，以及气候相关自然灾害对气温上升和下降时期的反应。我们使用 Morlet 小波分析来确定温度周期长度，以及评估气候变化对气候相关自然灾害数量的影响的弧弹性系数。结果表明：（1）温度与气候相关自然灾害数量之间的总体关系是正相关的；（2）然而，在周期水平上，气候相关自然灾害的模式与温度变化无关；（3）在上升-下降水平上，温度升高与气候相关自然灾害数量的减少有关。此外，随着温度的降低，气候相关自然灾害的数量大幅增加，因此在温度下降期间，温度对气候相关自然灾害的数量有更大的影响。本研究的结果可以帮助加强气候变化背景下自然灾害预警和缓解工作的传播。
