Reference
Zhai, P., Zhang, X., Wan, H. and Pan, X. 2005. Trends in total precipitation and frequency of daily precipitation extremes over China. Journal of Climate 18: 1096-1108.
What was done
The authors performed a series of analyses on daily precipitation data from 530 stations across mainland China over the period 1951-2000.
What was learned
Precipitation trends computed on an annual and seasonal basis were shown to vary by region in terms of both strength and sign. Some stations exhibited positive trends, some showed negative trends, still others showed no trend at all. For the whole of mainland China, the area-averaged time series of annual total precipitation anomalies showed a non-statistically significant decreasing trend of 1.03 mm per decade, which is consistent with an earlier study by Zhai et al. (1999) who examined trends from 296 stations for the period 1951-1995.
What it means
Overall, there has been no significant change in total annual precipitation over China during the second half of the 20th century, which finding does not support climate-alarmist claims of increased rainfall as a result of unprecedented CO2-induced global warming.
Reference
Zhai, P.-M. and Ren, F.-M. 1999. On change of China's maximum and minimum temperatures in 1951-1990. Acta Meteor. Sin. 13: 278-290.