Impact of extreme temperature shocks on the resilience of coastal cities in China

Abstract Extreme temperature shocks driven by global climate change pose a huge challenge to the sustainable development of global urban systems. The resilience of coastal cities to such shocks directly determines the country’s overall capacity for long-term climate change adaptation. Based on the Pressure–State–Response (PSR) framework, this study constructed a multilevel evaluation index system for coastal urban resilience and measured the resilience level of China’s coastal cities using the entropy weight method. We employed China’s high-resolution gridded meteorological data from 2007 to 2020, constructed a panel fixed effects model with multiple temperature bins to identify the nonlinear impact of temperature shocks on coastal urban resilience, and explored its underlying transmission mechanisms through dimensionality decomposition of the PSR framework. The main findings are as follows: First, during the study period, the resilience of China’s coastal cities exhibits a significant long-term upward trend, with continuously enhanced overall adaptive capacity and shock resistance, but it remains sensitive to short-term systemic shocks. Second, temperature shocks induce significant nonlinear and asymmetric effects on coastal urban resilience. Sustained moderately high temperature in the (25 °C, 30 °C] interval has a significantly negative impact on urban resilience at the 1% statistical level, while extreme high temperature (> 30 °C) has a statistically insignificant impact. In contrast, extreme low temperature intervals (− 10 °C, − 5 °C] and ≤ 10 °C show stronger negative shocks, with the absolute value of the effect significantly larger than that of moderately high temperature, forming a key weak link in climate risk prevention and control for China’s coastal cities. Furthermore, temperature shocks affect coastal urban resilience through differentiated transmission paths: Moderately high temperature undermines resilience through simultaneous negative effects on the PSR dimensions. The adverse impact of moderate warming is mainly concentrated in the pressure dimension, while extreme low temperature exerts a more extensive and intense destructive effect through the whole chain of the three PSR subsystems. Finally, a series of robustness tests, including excluding specific temperature bins, narrowing the sample period, and removing special year observations, consistently confirmed the high stability and reliability of the baseline results. This study enriches the theoretical and empirical research on extreme climate and urban climate resilience. It provides a scientific basis for formulating differentiated climate adaptation policies for China’s coastal cities and improving their spatial resilience. Furthermore, it offers valuable insights for global coastal regions to advance sustainable urban development amid climate change.