Proceedings Article | 3 December 2008
KEYWORDS: Infrared imaging, Satellites, Clouds, Satellite imaging, Meteorological satellites, Meteorology, Convection, Lanthanum, Climatology, Temperature metrology
At the beginning of 2008, South of China experienced a disastrous low temperature, rain, snow, ice and
sleet weather that is rare in the history. There are characteristics of abnormal circulation background
and inevitable rule in this event, with the satellite data we try to find out the weather and climate
reasons. This low temperature, rain, snow, ice and sleet event happened in the background of warm
winter. Since the 1980s, the global temperature rose 0.6+0.2°C[1], while China has continuously
witnessed 21 warm winters since the winter of 1986/1987 and the trend of cold wave showed a
decrease situation. Since last summer, La Nina enhanced gradually, in Jan 2008, SST of mid east
Pacific was 2°C higher than the average and La Nina hit its climax. The low temperature, rain, snow,
ice and sleet event is an abnormal weather occurred in the abnormal climate background. According to
the statistics of observation conducted by National Climate Center, during this event (Jan. 10- Feb. 3,
2008), the precipitation anomaly was 50% higher than the normal in mid and east part of south to
Yangtze River, most part of south China, east and south part of southwest China, and that is 20%
higher than the normal in mid and west part of south China, mid and north of Yunnan province, south
of Sichuan province, while in the areas of north Guizhou province, northwest Hunan province,
southwest Hubei province and Chongqing autonomous region, the precipitation was less than the
average. The temperature in the areas such as mid and west of south to Yangtze River, mid and west of
south China, east of southwest China was 2°C lower than the average and that in mid and east of
Hubei province, most of Hunan and Guizhou provinces, north of Guangxi autonomous region was
more than 4°C lower than the average. The freezing in the regions such as most of Hunan and Guizhou
provinces, northwest of Jiangxi 10 lasted days, and in some parts exceeded 15 days, all above are
extraordinary in the history. Using the data of Chinese FY2C meteorological satellite, with the products
of NCEP, the satellite image features were investigated in this paper.
