Will climate change make Chinese people more comfortable? A scenario analysis based on the weather preference index

Abstract

Abstract Assessing the climate change impact (CCI) on weather conditions is important for addressing climate change and promoting sustainable development. This study used a weather preference index (WPI) as an indicator to evaluate the CCI on weather conditions in China under different scenarios from 2025 to 2100. First, we analyzed the change in the WPI in China from 1971 to 2013. Then, we estimated the trends in the WPI in China from 2025 to 2100 under different representative concentration pathways (RCPs) based on global climate models. We found that China’s weather conditions improved from 1971 to 2013, as the national average WPI increased from 1.34 to 1.59 with a change rate of 0.03 per decade (0.03/10 a). Under all climate change scenarios, the weather conditions in China will deteriorate. The change rates of the WPI will be −0.19/10 a ∼ − 0.01/10 a. The number of people experiencing deteriorated weather conditions will be 0.71 billion ∼ 1.22 billion, accounting for 53.28% ∼ 91.58% of the total population in China. We also found that the area of the regions with deteriorated weather conditions under all three climate change scenarios will be 2.34 million km2, accounting for 24.31% of China’s total land area. At the same time, as the emissions concentrations increase from RCP2.6 to RCP8.5, the area of the regions with severely deteriorated weather conditions in China will increase from 0 to 3.27 million km2. Therefore, we suggest that China needs to implement effective measures to address climate change in the future and focus on the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change in regions with deteriorated weather conditions.