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Arid Land Geography ›› 2022, Vol. 45 ›› Issue (3): 684-694.doi: 10.12118/j.issn.1000-6060.2021.317

• Climate Change • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Response of seasonal frozen soil to climate change on a typical steppe of Inner Mongolia during 1981—2018

SU Yue1,ZHANG Cunhou1,2(), Amuersana3,LI Ke4   

  1. 1. Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Meteorological Disaster Monitoring and Warning Center, Hohhot 010051, Inner Mongolia, China
    2. Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Ecological and Agricultural Meteorology Center, Hohhot 010051, Inner Mongolia, China
    3. Hohhot Bureau of Meteorology, Hohhot 010000, Inner Mongolia, China
    4. Xuzhou Bureau of Meteorology, Xuzhou 221000, Jiangsu, China
  • Received:2021-07-13 Revised:2021-10-26 Online:2022-05-25 Published:2022-05-31
  • Contact: Cunhou ZHANG E-mail:zhangcunhou2004@163.com

Abstract:

This study investigates patterns of seasonally frozen soil in the context of climate change and assesses meteorological factors affecting variations in maximum frozen soil depth. Spatial and temporal characteristics of maximum frozen soil depth were evaluated for an area of typical steppe in Inner Mongolia, northern China over the most recent 38 years (1981—2018). Interannual and interdecadal variations were analyzed statistically using climate tendency rate, cumulative distance level, Mann-Kendall methods, and multiple linear regression. Meteorological data such as temperature, wind speed and relative humidity were used to analyze potential controls on maximum frozen soil depth. The study found that, for seasonally frozen soil of the Inner Mongolian steppe: (1) Soil typically freezes from September-November and thaws from April-June, with a maximum frozen soil depth of 100-280 cm attained in February-March. (2) Interannual variations in maximum frost depth can be classified into three patterns (lower open parabolic, upper open parabolic, and sinusoidal), with 68% of stations showing a trend of decreasing depth over time. (3) Interdecadal variations can also be divided into three types (decreasing chronologically, decreasing then increasing, and no clear pattern), with 50% of stations recording progressively shallower depths before 1989 followed by a change to a trend of thickening with time. (4) Multiple linear regression suggests that temperature freezing index, annual mean wind speed, and annual extreme minimum temperature had significant effects on maximum frozen soil depth.

Key words: seasonal frozen soil, climate change, typical steppe, multi-variate linear regression