China has been engaged in short-term climate prediction for nearly 70 years and was one of the earliest countries in the world to carry out short-term climate prediction and relevant researches. Since March 2021, the National Climate Center (NCC) of China has released officially the climate prediction for the next 15-30 days, months and seasons through its website. Short term climate forecasts are receiving increasing attention from society. In 2013, based on the operational prediction of short-term climate and the previous assessment methods, the Department of Forecasting and Networking of China Meteorological Administration issued a new method to assess operationally the short-term climate prediction. Using this new method, this paper analyzed the evaluation results for monthly climate prediction products during 1971-2020 released by the NCC. The results show that the prediction scores are lower in the winter half year than in the summer half year both for monthly temperature anomaly and precipitation anomaly percentage. The forecast skill of monthly temperature anomaly has been improved significantly in recent 50 years. The anomaly correlation coefficient between the forecast and observation of monthly temperature anomaly are positive in most parts of China throughout the year, except for December. The prediction level of monthly precipitation anomaly percentage in China in 50 years shows a trend of decreasing first and then increasing, especially in the past 30 years, it shows a relatively stable upward trend. The distribution of correlations between precipitation forecast and observation has three main patterns, which is much more complex than that of temperature, suggesting that the precipitation forecast is more challenging than temperature forecast.

In the context of global warming, soil moisture is a key factor affecting climate drought, crop growth, and environmental change. Using remote sensing technology to estimate soil moisture not only enhances drought early warning capabilities but also holds significant implications for agricultural development, ecological protection, and restoration. This article summarizes the currently used remote sensing data for soil moisture inversion and analyzes its development trends. It elaborates in detail on the principles, advantages, and disadvantages of each inversion method from optical and active-passive microwave perspectives, and further explores four main areas of soil moisture research: active-passive microwave, multisource data fusion, spatial scale conversion, and methods and model improvements. Finally, it outlines the evolutionary trends of remote sensing technology in the field of soil moisture inversion and presents a future outlook.

There was a peculiarly strong heat-wave event in May 2018 in Zhejiang Province. The extreme maximum temperature (EMT) in most areas was higher than 36 ℃ and in a few regions it could reach 40 ℃. The EMT and high-temperature days (NHD) in many stations broke historical record. The accumulated station-high-temperature days and effective accumulated high temperature both ranked the first in observational record. Based on daily observations at 66 normal stations in Zhejiang Province, NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data, and circulation indices of western Pacific subtropical high (WPSH) provided by National Climate Center, a diagnostic analysis was conducted to illustrate the large-scale circulation cause for such extreme high-temperature event. The results indicate that an enhanced, northward and westward western-distributed WPSH, which accompanied by eastward-march of the south-Asia high, was the direct reason for such extreme heat-wave event. Under the control of WPSH, broad anticyclonic horizontal wind anomaly formed in the region of southeast China-northwest Pacific on 850 hPa, and downward flow prevailed over Zhejiang region. During 14-18 of May 2018, positive anomaly of short-wave radiation flux and the subsident air worked together to intensify the extremity of prominent heat-wave. The change of intensity and location of WPSH was intimately linked with tropical and middle-latitude circulation. More supervital convection in Marine Continent, tropical middle Pacific and north Indian Ocean, weakened convective activity in south China Sea, decreased typhoon in tropical western Pacific acted jointly to enhance WPSH, while in mid-latitude, northward-placed westerly jet on 200 hPa made for stable maintenance of WPSH.