Spatiotemporal change and attribution of potential evapotranspiration over China from 1901 to 2100

Global warming has accelerated surface water loss around the world. This study investigates in detail the change and attribution of potential evapotranspiration (PET) across China from 1901 to 2100 by the Hargreaves model, based on a 1-km temperature dataset downscaled from the low-spatial-resolution datasets using a Delta downscaling framework. Results showed that (1) relative to 1961-1990, PET increased by 0.62% in the historic period (1901-2017) and 6.43-12.89% for the future period (2018-2100), suggesting considerable future drying for China. Moreover, these increments had strong spatial variations and the largest increases were detected in high-elevation regions; (2) PET over entire China demonstrated a nonsignificant upward trend during the historic period and significant upward trends for the future period. For each period and GCM, significant upward PET trends occupied a much larger percent area than significant downward trends; (3) PET variations during the historic period were most sensitive to mean temperature (TMP), while in the future period it was more sensitive to maximum temperature (TMX), suggesting a change in the primary sensitivity factor due to global warming; (4) minimum temperature (TMN) made the largest contribution (45%) to PET variations during the historic period, while TMX had the largest contribution (36-40%) in the future period. Therefore, the primary contributing factor might transform from TMN to TMX under climate change; and (5) PET variations exhibited strong spatial heterogeneity, detected on fine geographic scales, due to the use of downscaled dataset. Overall, the results present a deep insight for planning coping strategies of global warming in China.

Automated summary

The study reveals that potential evapotranspiration in China is projected to significantly increase in the future, especially in high-elevation regions; significant upward trends in PET are observed across China, with higher elevations experiencing greater impacts; the sensitivity of PET variations shifts from mean temperature in the historic period to maximum temperature in the future period.