Regional Climate of China is the first volume to present the latest research findings gained over the last decade which has greatly advanced our knowledge of the regional climate researches in China. A distinctive feature of the volume is that it is based on an integration of researches by using the advanced technologies, such as field observation and experiment, satellite information and numerical models in the regional climate studies.

The continued aridity trend occurring in many regions worldwide is a manifestation of the response of the earth system to global change. It hinders severely the sustainable development of these regions. Northern China is one of the largest and most affected regions in the world. This book documents the climate change in its arid and semi-arid areas on decadal to geological time scales based on analyses of various data sources. These analyses improved our understanding of the potential mechanisms driving the aridity trend, particularly in the second half of the 20th century. Based on these analyses and a systematic assessment of the impact of the aridity trend on the ecological and hydrological processes in northern China, measures of human adaptation to the aridity trend for socio-economic developments are proposed.World Scientific Series on Asia-Pacific Weather and Climate is indexed in SCOPUS.

Global environmental change occupies a central niche in the pantheon of modern sciences. There is an urgent need to know and understand the way in which global biogeochemical cycles have changed over different time scales in the past and are likely to do so in the future. Equally important, it is necessary to determine the extent to which natural variability and that induce by anthropogenic activities are bringing about change. A number of international co-operative scientific programmes ad dress these issues. Chief among them are the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and the Inter national Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP) for global change. This book is one of a series of IGBP syntheses drawing together findings in global environmental change over the past decade or so. One focus of IGBP activities is the System for Analysis, Research and Training (START). Co-sponsored by the WCRP and IHDP, START establishes regional research networks for global change science in developing countries, stimulates and carries out global change research in developing regions of the world, and builds capacity to undertake such research at personal, institutional and regional levels. Several regional global change networks have been established, and much regional research has been accomplished in the last five years or so. In this book, work relating to four of the older START regions, Southern Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, will be used as case studies to illustrate regional-global linkages in Earth System Science.