Paper Reviewed
Xia, F., Liu, X., Xu, J., Wang, Z., Huang, J. and Brookes, P.C. 2015. Trends in the daily and extreme temperatures in the Qiantang River basin, China. International Journal of Climatology 35: 57-68.

Climate alarmists claim to be alarmed by climate model calculations which suggest that atmospheric CO2 enrichment has been -- and will continue to be -- a powerful driving force for increasing the occurrence of extreme heat waves that are claimed to have numerous detrimental impacts on Earth's biosphere, including our own species. And, therefore, Xia et al. (2015) thought it wise to see what may have been happening in this regard over the past several decades in the Qiantang River basin, which they describe as "an important region in the Yangtze River Delta" that "plays a crucial role in the economic development of eastern China."

Working with data that had been collected between 1960 and 2006 from 14 meteorological stations spread throughout the basin, the six scientists employed both the Mann-Kendell trend test and simple linear regression analyses to detect trends in daily mean temperature and daily hot and cold extremes. These efforts revealed significant warming trends throughout the region for both daily mean and minimum temperatures but not for daily maximum temperatures; for they report that "in contrast to the cold events, the changes in hot events were insignificant," such that "the study region is becoming 'less cold', rather than becoming hotter," which also means that the mean daily temperature range of the region has gradually been decreasing, in harmony, as they put it, with "the results from investigations covering all of China," as earlier described by Liu et al. (2004).

These findings are not to be lamented, but to be welcomed; for as may be seen by perusing the many journal reviews we have archived under the heading of Temperature (Health Effects - Hot vs. Cold Weather) in our Subject Index, cold weather is a far greater danger to human health -- and even life itself -- than is hot weather.

Reference
Liu, B.H., Xu, M., Henderson, M., Qi, Y. and Li, Y.Q. 2004. Taking China's temperature: daily range, warming trends, and regional variations, 1955-2000. Journal of Climate 17: 4453-4462.