Study on the climate features and climatic productivity potentialvariation in middlenorthern Gansu Province

Jingtai, Jingyuan and Huining counties are located in the middle part of Gansu Province, which is the transitional region between Tenggeli Desert and Loess Plateau with transitional climate between arid and semiarid. Based on the meteorologica1 data from meteorological stations of Jingtai，Jingyuan and Huining from 1960 to 2008, the climate features and climate productivity potential were studied. The result indicated that the turning point of climate change was around 1980. The climate productivity potential in Huining was the highest, and followed by Jingyuan and Jingtai. The estimated values were 1 898,1 738 and 1 531 g/（m2a） respectively. Since 1960, the climate change in 3 counties varied and was not significant.