scholarly journals Spatio-Temporal Variation of Reference Evapotranspiration and Its Climatic Drivers over the Tibetan Plateau during 1970–2018

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (17) ◽  
pp. 8013
Author(s):  
Shanshan Hu ◽  
Ruyi Gao ◽  
Tao Zhang ◽  
Peng Bai ◽  
Rui Zhang

Reference evapotranspiration (ET0) is a key component of hydrologic cycle and it is important for water resources management. Analysis of ET0 changes is particularly critical for understanding the impacts of climatic change on hydrology in ecologically fragile regions. In this study, using the Penman–Monteith method and the Mann–Kendall test, the variation characteristics of ET0 on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) from 1970 to 2018 was analyzed, and the dominant climatic factors controlling the change of ET0 was also explored. The result shows that in TP region: (1) there was an abrupt change in the trend of ET0 around 1997, and the ET0 declined at a rate of −25.9 mm/decade during 1970–1996 but increased by 31.1 mm/decade during 1997–2018; (2) ET0 is most sensitive to solar radiation, then relative humidity, wind speed and mean temperature; (3) the decrease of ET0 before 1997 was mainly due to the decline of wind speed and the increase of relative humidity, while the increase of ET0 after 1997 was mainly due to the decrease of relative humidity. The results of this study can provide data reference for the research of water balance on the TP.

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 1962
Author(s):  
Zhilong Zhao ◽  
Yue Zhang ◽  
Zengzeng Hu ◽  
Xuanhua Nie

The alpine lakes on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) are indicators of climate change. The assessment of lake dynamics on the TP is an important component of global climate change research. With a focus on lakes in the 33° N zone of the central TP, this study investigates the temporal evolution patterns of the lake areas of different types of lakes, i.e., non-glacier-fed endorheic lakes and non-glacier-fed exorheic lakes, during 1988–2017, and examines their relationship with changes in climatic factors. From 1988 to 2017, two endorheic lakes (Lake Yagenco and Lake Zhamcomaqiong) in the study area expanded significantly, i.e., by more than 50%. Over the same period, two exorheic lakes within the study area also exhibited spatio-temporal variability: Lake Gaeencuonama increased by 5.48%, and the change in Lake Zhamuco was not significant. The 2000s was a period of rapid expansion of both the closed lakes (endorheic lakes) and open lakes (exorheic lakes) in the study area. However, the endorheic lakes maintained the increase in lake area after the period of rapid expansion, while the exorheic lakes decreased after significant expansion. During 1988–2017, the annual mean temperature significantly increased at a rate of 0.04 °C/a, while the annual precipitation slightly increased at a rate of 2.23 mm/a. Furthermore, the annual precipitation significantly increased at a rate of 14.28 mm/a during 1995–2008. The results of this study demonstrate that the change in precipitation was responsible for the observed changes in the lake areas of the two exorheic lakes within the study area, while the changes in the lake areas of the two endorheic lakes were more sensitive to the annual mean temperature between 1988 and 2017. Given the importance of lakes to the TP, these are not trivial issues, and we now need accelerated research based on long-term and continuous remote sensing data.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 307
Author(s):  
Chi Zhang ◽  
Naixia Mou ◽  
Jiqiang Niu ◽  
Lingxian Zhang ◽  
Feng Liu

Changes in snow cover over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) have a significant impact on agriculture, hydrology, and ecological environment of surrounding areas. This study investigates the spatio-temporal pattern of snow depth (SD) and snow cover days (SCD), as well as the impact of temperature and precipitation on snow cover over TP from 1979 to 2018 by using the ERA5 reanalysis dataset, and uses the Mann–Kendall test for significance. The results indicate that (1) the average annual SD and SCD in the southern and western edge areas of TP are relatively high, reaching 10 cm and 120 d or more, respectively. (2) In the past 40 years, SD (s = 0.04 cm decade−1, p = 0.81) and SCD (s = −2.3 d decade−1, p = 0.10) over TP did not change significantly. (3) The positive feedback effect of precipitation is the main factor affecting SD, while the negative feedback effect of temperature is the main factor affecting SCD. This study improves the understanding of snow cover change and is conducive to the further study of climate change on TP.


Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 505
Author(s):  
Yonglan Tang ◽  
Guirong Xu ◽  
Rong Wan ◽  
Xiaofang Wang ◽  
Junchao Wang ◽  
...  

It is an important to study atmospheric thermal and dynamic vertical structures over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and their impact on precipitation by using long-term observation at representative stations. This study exhibits the observational facts of summer precipitation variation on subdiurnal scale and its atmospheric thermal and dynamic vertical structures over the TP with hourly precipitation and intensive soundings in Jiulong during 2013–2020. It is found that precipitation amount and frequency are low in the daytime and high in the nighttime, and hourly precipitation greater than 1 mm mostly occurs at nighttime. Weak precipitation during the daytime may be caused by air advection, and strong precipitation at nighttime may be closely related with air convection. Both humidity and wind speed profiles show obvious fluctuation when precipitation occurs, and the greater the precipitation intensity, the larger the fluctuation. Moreover, the fluctuation of wind speed is small in the morning, large at noon and largest at night, presenting a similar diurnal cycle to that of convective activity over the TP, which is conductive to nighttime precipitation. Additionally, the inverse layer is accompanied by the inverse humidity layer, and wind speed presents multi-peaks distribution in its vertical structure. Both of these are closely related with the underlying surface and topography of Jiulong. More studies on physical mechanism and numerical simulation are necessary for better understanding the atmospheric phenomenon over the TP.


2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 98-102
Author(s):  
Haqqi Yasin ◽  
Luma Abdullah

Average daily data of solar radiation, relative humidity, wind speed and air temperature from 1980 to 2008 are used to estimate the daily reference evapotranspiration in the Mosul City, North of Iraq. ETo calculator software with the Penman Monteith method standardized by the Food and Agriculture Organization is used for calculations. Further, a nonlinear regression approach using SPSS Statistics is utilized to drive the daily reference evapotranspiration relationships in which ETo is function to one or more of the average daily air temperature, actual daily sunshine duration, measured wind speed at 2m height and relative humidity


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (13) ◽  
pp. 8399-8406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qianshan He ◽  
Jianzhong Ma ◽  
Xiangdong Zheng ◽  
Xiaolu Yan ◽  
Holger Vömel ◽  
...  

Abstract. We measured the vertical profiles of backscatter ratio (BSR) using the balloon-borne, lightweight Compact Optical Backscatter AerosoL Detector (COBALD) instruments above Linzhi, located in the southeastern Tibetan Plateau, in the summer of 2014. An enhanced aerosol layer in the upper troposphere–lower stratosphere (UTLS), with BSR (455 nm) > 1.1 and BSR (940 nm) > 1.4, was observed. The color index (CI) of the enhanced aerosol layer, defined as the ratio of aerosol backscatter ratios (ABSRs) at wavelengths of 940 and 455 nm, varied from 4 to 8, indicating the prevalence of fine particles with a mode radius of less than 0.1 µm. We find that unlike the very small particles (mode radius smaller than 0.04 µm) at low relative humidity (RHi < 40 %), the relatively large particles in the aerosol layer were generally very hydrophilic as their size increased dramatically with relative humidity. This result indicates that water vapor can play a very important role in increasing the size of fine particles in the UTLS over the Tibetan Plateau. Our observations provide observation-based evidence supporting the idea that aerosol particle hygroscopic growth is an important factor influencing the radiative properties of the Asian Tropopause Aerosol Layer (ATAL) during the Asian summer monsoon.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document