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Persistent extreme heat events (PEHEs) exert a more negative impact on society, including agriculture, plant phenology, power production and human health, compared to general EHEs. The temporal and spatial characteristics of summer PEHEs in eastern China were analysed based on a daily maximum temperature dataset from 759 stations over the period of 1961–2018. The results show the following: Persistent distributions of PEHEs show that they are characterized by an exponential decay with a drop in the decay rate. In terms of spatial distribution, there is an apparent regional difference in the duration of PEHEs. North China is dominated by multi-frequency and short-duration EHEs, while South China is the opposite. PEHEs in North China and the Huanghuai region mainly occur in June-July but mostly in July and August in South China. Strongly responding to global warming, the frequency and duration of PEHEs in North China have increased since the 1990s. However, the frequency of PEHEs in North China and the Huanghuai region has shown opposite trends in June-July since the beginning of the twenty-first century. Affected by the atmospheric circulations, the regional differences in PEHE frequency are also apparent. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the PEHEs in North China and the Huanghuai area have shown an increasing trend in August. The short-term PEHEs in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and South China increased rapidly in the 2000s, while long-term PEHEs increased in the 2010s. This study implies that attention should be paid to not only the frequency of EH days but also to the persistence of EHE which is a key characteristic of damaging EH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we investigate the interdecadal variation characteristics of the dominant mode of summer precipitation over East Asia‐Northwest Pacific (EA‐NWP) before and after late 1990s, reveal the physical mechanism, and address its possible connection with the regional ocean warming background. Study results show that the empirical orthogonal function mode 1 (EOF1) of summer precipitation anomalies over EA‐NWP during the global ocean warming acceleration period (1979–1998) present a more significant dipole pattern between Yangtze River Basin (YRB) and tropical NWP compared with that during the global ocean warming slowdown period (1999–2012). And then we find that the anomalous dipoles of low‐level winds, geopotential height, convection, and associated wave activity fluxes over NWP significantly shift westward (eastward) and enhance (weaken) in 1979–1998 (1999–2012), which are regarded as the direct cause of the adjustment of dipole pattern between YRB and tropical NWP. Further analysis reveals that the negative sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the tropical NWP are prominent (not prominent), resulting in the stronger (weaker) Pacific–Japan Teleconnection over Japan and Tropics in NWP during the period 1979–1998 (1999–2012), and ultimately lead to the change of summer precipitation EOF1 in EA‐NWP. By regressing vertical velocity, outgoing longwave radiation, relative vorticity, wave activity fluxes, and precipitation onto the NWP SST in the two periods, the impacts of the SST in the NWP on the interdecadal variation of summer precipitation EOF1 in EA‐NWP are verified. Finally, the mechanism diagram of interdecadal variation of summer precipitation is given, which can be useful for short‐term precipitation prediction of East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]