A dangerous trend How anthropogenically driven climate change is affecting heat waves and drought is one of the most important environmental issues facing societies around the globe. Zhang et al. present a 260-year-long record of temperature and soil moisture over inner East Asia that reveals an abrupt shift to hotter and drier conditions (see the Perspective by Zhang and Fang). Extreme episodes of hotter and drier climate over the past 20 years, which are unprecedented in the earlier records, are caused by a positive feedback loop between soil moisture deficits and surface warming and potentially represent the start of an irreversible trend. Science, this issue p. 1095; see also p. 1037 The recent trend toward hotter and drier climate in inner East Asia could be irreversible. Unprecedented heatwave-drought concurrences in the past two decades have been reported over inner East Asia. Tree-ring–based reconstructions of heatwaves and soil moisture for the past 260 years reveal an abrupt shift to hotter and drier climate over this region. Enhanced land-atmosphere coupling, associated with persistent soil moisture deficit, appears to intensify surface warming and anticyclonic circulation anomalies, fueling heatwaves that exacerbate soil drying. Our analysis demonstrates that the magnitude of the warm and dry anomalies compounding in the recent two decades is unprecedented over the quarter of a millennium, and this trend clearly exceeds the natural variability range. The “hockey stick”–like change warns that the warming and drying concurrence is potentially irreversible beyond a tipping point in the East Asian climate system.

中文翻译：

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东亚内陆气候突然转变为超过临界点的炎热干燥气候

危险的趋势人为驱动的气候变化如何影响热浪和干旱是全球社会面临的最重要的环境问题之一。张等人。展示了东亚内陆地区长达 260 年的温度和土壤湿度记录，揭示了突然转向更热和更干燥的条件（参见 Zhang 和 Fang 的观点）。过去 20 年出现极端炎热干燥气候事件，这在早期记录中是前所未有的，是由土壤水分亏缺和地表变暖之间的正反馈循环引起的，可能代表了不可逆转趋势的开始。科学，这个问题 p。1095; 另见第 1037 最近东亚内陆地区气候炎热干燥的趋势可能无法逆转。在过去的二十年里，东亚内陆地区出现了前所未有的热浪干旱。对过去 260 年的热浪和土壤湿度的基于树木年轮的重建揭示了该地区气候突然转变为更热和更干燥的气候。与持续土壤水分亏缺相关的陆地-大气耦合增强，似乎加剧了地表变暖和反气旋环流异常，加剧了加剧土壤干燥的热浪。我们的分析表明，近 20 年暖干异常复合的规模在 25 年里是前所未有的，而且这种趋势明显超出了自然变化范围。