Abstract:The global warming trend has been increasingly significant since the 1980s.It appears that the warming has been accelerating since a decade ago.In 2023 and 2024,the global high temperature record was broken twice.In 2024,the temperature has risen by more than 1.55 ℃ as compared to the pre-industrial period.UN Secretary-General António Guterres proposed that the era of global warming has ended and the era of global boiling has arrived.With the intensification of climate change,the occurrence of extreme weather and climate events is becoming more and more frequent.According to statistics from relevant UN agencies,the economic losses caused by extreme weather and climate from 2000 to 2019 have been doubled compared to the previous 20 years.Effective tackling to the challenges of intensified climate change and extreme events requires revolutionary progress in climate science.Several landmark achievements in climate research have received top awards such as the Nobel Prize.The World Climate Research Programme has listed seven major scientific challenges and established the latest strategic and implementation plans to promote climate research and effectively address the challenges.
The China National Climate Research Committee (also the China National Committee for the World Climate Research Programme,CNC-WCRP) was established in 1985.It is one of the earliest established WCRP national committees in the world.CNC-WCRP has vigorously promoted exchanges and cooperation in climate research at home and internationally,and it has become an important bridge connecting international and domestic climate change research.The China Climate Research Committee,through expert recommendations and strict reviews,selected the major progress of climate research in China in 2024.
1) Characteristics and causes of interdecadal extreme warming in Northeast Asia transition Zone (Cai et al.,2024),a one-sentence comment:reveals that the substantial warming of the Northeast Asian climate transition zone since the 1980s is not entirely caused by external forcing,while the Pacific and Atlantic decadal oscillations play a significant role.
2) Aerosol climate effect caused by changes in aerosol absorbency and underlying surface albedo (Chen et al.,2024),a one-sentence comment:combining multi-source data to reveal the influence of surface albedo on the direct radiation effects of aerosols in recent 20 years,thus demonstrating the complexity of quantifying the direct radiation effects of aerosols.
3) Human activities have led to more variable global precipitation in the past hundred years (Zhang W et al.,2024),a one-sentence comment:the most abundant data are used to demonstrate the enhancement of global precipitation variability at different time scales.
4) Traditional Meiyu has been suspended by global warming (Yin et al.,2024),a one-sentence comment:for the first time,a three-dimensional index was constructed to characterize traditional Meiyu and it was found that the characteristics of traditional Meiyu features,such as misty rain and mildew rain,are gradually moving away due to global warming.
5) The pattern of global precipitation system tends to flatten in the past two decades (Zhang and Wang,2024),one sentence comment:in the past 20 years,the spatial morphology of precipitation systems on a global scale tends to flatten due to the enhancement of atmospheric stability and the increase of water vapor transport (manifested as a trend of limited vertical development and enhanced horizontal expansion).
6) The coupling process of water-heat-carbon on land surface and its key mechanisms in the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau (Deng et al.,2024;Meng et al.,2024;Sheng et al.,2024;Wang et al.,2024),a one-sentence comment:the key characteristics and mechanisms of the surface water-heat-carbon coupling are revealed using the observational data of the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau.
7) Effects of SST anomalies in the mid-latitude North Pacific Ocean on summer climate in ENSO and non-ENSO states (Tao et al.,2024a,2024b),a one-sentence comment:the mid-latitude North Pacific SST anomaly has a significant effect on subsequent summer climate (regardless of whether ENSO events occur).
8) Finding the increasing trend of salinity difference between Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean (Lu Y et al.,2024),a one-sentence comment:the analysis of 0—2 000 m ocean observational data reveals that seawater salinity has generally increased in the Atlantic Ocean and decreased in the Pacific Ocean in the past half century.
9) Deeptime ocean circulation and ENSO (Li et al.,2024;Yuan et al.,2024),a one-sentence comment:using coupled climate models to simulate the deeptime North Atlantic overturning circulation and ENSO,presenting rich pictures of the processes and mechanisms.
10) Development and application of artificial intelligence (AI) global subseasonal-seasonal climate prediction system (Lu B et al.,2024),a one-sentence comment:a large artificial intelligence model for global subseasonal-seasonal climate prediction with physical information is constructed.
The major research progresses in 2024 as selected by the China Climate Research Committee involves many aspects of the earth's climate system,and most of the results are completed by the cooperation.At the same time,the research results have important value for building better forecasting methods to support efficient disaster prevention and reduction.Based on these research achievements and the author's research,this artical proposed that hot spots and emphases of future climate research mainly include,global warming acceleration,intensifying climate extremes,new era of the Arctic and Qinghai-Xizang Plateau,the interaction of the three oceans,paleoclimate studies serving for present climate change research,climate prediction and AI,and the increasing risk in coastal urban agglomerations to climate change.
