Diabatic heating is closely related to the occurrence and development of weather system and is closely related to weather processes such as precipitation. Diabatic heating plays an important role in atmospheric motion and has drawn more and more attention in recent years. Study and understanding of diabatic heating can help improve numerical weather forecasting model and enhance the forecasting ability of numerical weather forecasting model. This paper systematically analyzes the basic contents of diabatic heating and the research results of diabatic heating in recent decades, mainly including concept and characterization of diabatic heating, spatiotemporal distribution characteristics of diabatic heating, relationship between diabatic heating and monsoon, relationship between diabatic heating and weather systems such as subtropical high over western Pacific, tropical cyclone, temperate cyclone and jet streams, and relationship between diabatic heating and precipitation as well as the characterization of diabatic heating in the numerical model, etc. Then, we point out that diabatic heating should be further studied.