Changes in extreme temperature over China when global warming stabilized at 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C

The 1.5 °C global warming target proposed by the Paris Agreement has raised worldwide attention and inspired numerous studies to assess corresponding climate changes for different regions of the world. But CMIP5 models based on Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) are ‘transient simulations’ and cannot reflect the response of climate warming stabilized at 1.5 °C. The current work presents an assessment of extreme temperature changes in China with simulations from ‘Half a degree Additional warming, Prognosis and Projected Impacts’ (HAPPI) project specially conceived for global warming levels stabilized at 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C. When global warming stabilizes at 1.5 °C/2.0 °C, the areal-mean temperature for whole China increases by about 0.94 °C/1.59 °C (relative to present period, taken from 2006–2015). Notable increase regions are mainly found in Northwest and Northeast-North China, but warm spell duration increases mostly in Southeast China. The effect of the additional 0.5 °C warming is particularly investigated and compared between the transient and stabilized simulations. Changes of mean and extreme temperature are larger in transient simulations than in stabilized simulations. The uncertainty range is also narrower in stabilized simulations. Under stabilized global warming scenario, extreme hot event with return period of 100 years in the present climate becomes event occurring every 4.79 (1.5 °C warming level) and 1.56 years (2.0 °C warming level), extreme cold event with return period of 10 years becomes event occurring every 67 years under 1.5 °C warming and is unlikely to occur under 2.0 °C warming. For geographic distribution, the occurrence probabilities of extreme (hot and cold) events mainly change in the Tibetan Plateau, and the extreme cold events also change in Northeast and Southeast China.