Special issue on explaining the climate of China in 2021

The year 2021 was very warm in China along with the occurrence of very unusual extreme events. Documenting and explaining the climate each year, including the anomalous state and the most significant extreme weather and climate events, are important to improve scientific understanding of the fast-evolving climate, and provide the public and policy makers with timely, peer-reviewed and authoritative scientific information.

It is envisioned that this special issue will be the first of an annual series documenting and explaining the state of the climate each year, including extremes, with a focus on China. The accumulation of this series for the years to come will systematically record how the climate is changing, while our memories of events are still vivid. This will be useful for future reference and for guiding climate policy; in particular, climate adaptation.  

The scope of the special issue includes documentation, diagnostics and attribution of noteworthy anomalies in the regional climate system and weather and climate extremes in the previous year in China. We invite new and timely contributions that document these issues and their impacts, and that provide mechanistic understanding of the causes, both natural and anthropogenic, and physical processes that underpin these phenomena.

Topics covered: 

• Surface and/or upper-level variables
• Hydrological cycle
• Cryospheric and coastal phenomena
• Atmospheric circulation
• Extreme weather and climate events
• Methodology of climate analysis
• Verification of seasonal and interannual climate predictions
• Impact of anomalous climate events
• Hazard early warning and management/response: lessons learned

Important deadlines:

• Submission deadline: 30 June 2022
• Publication date: 31 December 2022

Submission instructions:

Submissions should not exceed 4,000 words, and the abstract should be no longer than 200 words. Authors are welcome to submit up to four figures. Please read the Guide for Authors before submitting. All articles should be submitted online; please select ExplainClimateChina2021.

Guest Editors:

• Prof. Ying Sun, National Climate Center, China Meteorological Administration, China. Email: sunying@cma.gov.cn 
• Prof. Tianjun Zhou, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China. Email: zhoutj@lasg.iap.ac.cn
• Prof. Shichang Kang, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China. Email: shichang.kang@lzb.ac.cn
• Prof. Botao Zhou, School of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, China. Email: zhoubt@nuist.edu.cn
• Prof. Qingchen Chao, National Climate Center, China Meteorological Administration, China. Email: chaoqc@cma.gov.cn