To study the variation characteristics of SST in coastal south China, observed SST was analyzed for the past 44 years. The results show that the monthly and yearly averaged SST have rising trends, the yearly averaged SST’s linearity rising rate is 0.12-0.19 °C/decade in the years, the rising extents in winter are higher than those in summer. The variability in winter is larger than that in summer, with the largest in February and March. A majority of significant cold or warm events occurred in winter. A wavelet multi- resolution method was used to analyze periodical characteristics of SST in coastal south China, all time- scale decomposition series are very similar, and high-frequency decompositions within the year are dominant. Low-frequency decompositions show rising trends since the mid-1970.
Based on temperature data in Guangdong in the past 50years, statistical methods are used to analyze the characteristics of temperature in spatial and temporal variation. The results show that land surface temperature warms by 0.16 °C/10a in Guangdong. The range of warming was lower than the average of nationwide and global land surface. Furthermore, the temperature has a larger increase tendency in winter and spring and coastal areas than in summer and autumn and inland areas. Climate zones move towards the north obviously. North tropical zone is expanding, south subtropical zone is reducing and central subtropical zone is relatively stable. Under the global climate warming, characteristics of climate warming in Guangdong were influenced by atmosphere general circulation, sea surface temperature and human activities etc.
