Accelerated Chinas cold regions contraction under climate warming
Wang X. Wei S. Gou X. Chen D. Lu M. Pang G. Qie L. Li Y. Wang Q. Liu L. Wang T. Yang M. Kerimbayevich Y.F.
January 2026Elsevier Inc.
Gondwana Research
2026#149229 - 245 pp.
Cold regions are vital to the Earth system, influencing water storage, energy balance, and ecological stability. Chinas diverse terrain includes extensive cold regions that are shrinking due to global warming, with profound implications for climate resilience. Despite their importance, comprehensive assessments of these regions’ past trends and future projections are lacking. This study employs an array of data, including gridded daily dataset (CN05.1), China Meteorological Forcing Dataset (CMFD), European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Reanalysis v5-Land (ERA5-Land), and original and bias-corrected outputs from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) global climate models (GCMs), to analyze the historical (1979–2016) and projected (2015–2100) dynamics of Chinas cold regions under different emission scenarios. Our findings indicate that from 1979 to 2016, Chinas cold regions covered an average of 3.87 million km2, or 40.4 % of Chinas land area, with the most substantial areas located in the Tibetan Plateau, Tianshan and Pamirs mountain ranges, and the northeastern region. These regions experienced a significant decline, at a rate of 154,000 km2 per decade. Future projections based on bias-corrected CMIP6 data suggest an accelerating contraction, with estimates ranging from a decrease of 54,000 km2 per decade under the SSP126 scenario to 210,000 km2 per decade under the SSP585 scenario. By the end of the 21st century, the cold regions’ extent could diminish by more than 50 % under the high-emission SSP585 scenario compared to the historical baseline. The analysis shows that nearly 95 % of variations in the extent of Chinas cold regions can be attributed to shifts in areas with an annual average temperature at or below 5 °C. These results underscore the need for urgent climate adaptation strategies, particularly as Chinas cold regions continue to shrink in response to climate warming driven by human-induced emissions.
Assimilation data , Chinas cold regions , CMIP6 GCMs , Cold regions contraction , Future projection , Meteorological gridded observation , Reanalysis data
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Key Laboratory of Western Chinas Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
Gansu Liancheng Forest Ecosystem Field Observation and Research Station, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
Academy of Plateau Science and Sustainability, Qinghai Normal University, Xining, China
School of Atmospheric Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, and Key Laboratory of Tropical Atmosphere–Ocean System, Ministry of Education, Zhuhai, China
Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong
Faculty of Geomatics, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, Lanzhou, China
Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Science and Frozen Soil Engineering, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, China
Scientific and Educational Technology Platform, Kazakh National Agrarian Research University, Almaty, Kazakhstan
Key Laboratory of Western Chinas Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education)
Gansu Liancheng Forest Ecosystem Field Observation and Research Station
Academy of Plateau Science and Sustainability
School of Atmospheric Sciences
Department of Earth System Science
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Faculty of Geomatics
Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Science and Frozen Soil Engineering
Scientific and Educational Technology Platform
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