Climatology of Tibetan Plateau Vortices in Reanalysis Data and a High-Resolution Global Climate Model

Curio, Julia; Schiemann, R.; Hodges, Kevin I.; Turner, Andrew G.

doi:10.1175/jcli-d-18-0021.1

Cited by 58 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Hunt et al (2019) showed that historical simulations in CMIP5 GCMs generally represented the structure well, while overestimating the frequency and intensity. Ridley et al (2013) used a weather regime clustering technique with a regional climate model to argue that western disturbances and associated snowfall may increase in the future; however, their result was sensitive to the GCM used to force the boundaries of their RCM, their domain included the Tibetan Plateau and they did not separate the potential effects of Tibetan Plateau vortices (e.g., Curio et al 2019;Hunt et al 2018a) from WDs. In a more general way, Chang et al (2012) used 24-h bandpassfiltered meridional wind variance as a proxy for synoptic activity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Falling Trend of Western Disturbances in Future Climate Simulations

2019

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Western disturbances (WDs) are synoptic-scale cyclonic weather systems advected over Pakistan and northern India by the subtropical westerly jet stream. There, they are responsible for most of the winter precipitation, which is crucial for agriculture of the rabi crop as well for as more extreme precipitation events, which can lead to local flooding and avalanches. Despite their importance, there has not yet been an attempt to objectively determine the fate of WDs in future climate GCMs. Here, a tracking algorithm is used to build up a catalog of WDs in both CMIP5 historical and representative concentration pathway (RCP) experiments of the future. It is shown that in business-as-usual (RCP8.5) future climate simulations, WD frequency falls by around 15% by the end of the twenty-first century, with the largest relative changes coming in pre- and postmonsoon months. Meanwhile, mean WD intensity will decrease, with central vorticity expected to become less cyclonic by about 12% over the same period. Changes in WD frequency are attributed to the projected widening and weakening of the winter subtropical jet as well as decreasing meridional wind shear and midtropospheric baroclinic vorticity tendency, which also explain the changes in intensity. The impact of these changes on regional precipitation is explored. The decline in WD frequency and intensity will cause a decrease in mean winter rainfall over Pakistan and northern India amounting to about 15% of the mean—subject to the ability of the models to represent the responsible processes. The effect on extreme precipitation events, however, remains unclear.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Falling Trend of Western Disturbances in Future Climate Simulations

2019

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“…Therefore, further examination based on higher resolution data is needed. In addition, the manual tracking of TPVs in this work is subjective, thus, the objective tracking method (Curio et al, 2018;Curio et al, 2019) should be utilized in future work, which is beneficial for the climatological study of TPVs. Moreover, although the dynamic and thermodynamic effects on EPDs are revealed in this work, questions remain regarding their relative roles and the different mechanisms involved before, during, and after moving off the Tibetan Plateau.…”

Section: Summary and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of the atmospheric dynamic and thermodynamic fields on the eastward propagation of Tibetan Plateau vortices

Zhang

Wen

et al. 2019

Tellus A: Dynamic Meteorology and Oceanography

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Tibetan Plateau vortices (TPVs) are major rain-producing systems over the Tibetan Plateau. Some TPVs can move off the plateau under certain conditions and impact rainfall over Eastern China. Accordingly, the eastward propagation distances of the TPVs moving off the plateau (EPDs) are closely related to the areas of rainfall associated with TPVs. In this study, the moving-off TPVs during May-August of 1998-2015 are classified into two groups according to their EPDs, and the circulations and heating fields at the times when the TPVs move off the plateau (i.e. moving-off times) are investigated based on reanalysis data. The dynamic and thermodynamic conditions to the east of the Tibetan Plateau are found to significantly impact the EPDs. In the middle and lower troposphere, the zonal ranges of negative geopotential height anomalies to the east of the Tibetan Plateau are in accordance with the EPDs of the TPVs, indicating that anomalous lows play a favourable role in the eastward movement of TPVs. In addition, the anomalous highs to the northeast of the Tibetan Plateau and over Southeastern China also benefit the maintenance of cyclonic circulation to the east of the plateau. Meanwhile, in the upper troposphere, the jet stream over Northeast Asia is beneficial for divergence at 200 hPa. Accordingly, ascending motion associated with the upper-level divergence and lowerlevel convergence is observed, with the zonal extent corresponding well to the EPDs in the two situations. The atmospheric thermodynamic factors also show a remarkable effect on the EPDs. The TPVs move farther away when the unstable stratification and water vapour convergence extend further eastward. The heating ranges above 500 hPa coincide with the EPDs of TPVs, implying a close relationship between the heating fields and the EPDs. These results benefit prediction on EPDs and further on rainfall to the east of the Tibetan Plateau.

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“…In fact, the TPV is a mesoscale weather system (Luo, 1994;Lin, 2015) with an average radius of less than 500 km, which is unlikely to affect such a wide geographical range, and thus it will greatly overestimate the precipitation related to TPVs. In recent studies, Curio et al (2019) use a geodesic radius of 3 around the TPV centre. Their scheme is similar to the method of Hawcroft et al (2012) that relates the precipitation with extratropical cyclones, although the cap scale used by Hawcroft et al (2012) is significantly larger (10 /12 in winter/summer) due to the larger size of the systems.…”

Section: Tpv Tracking and Its Associated Precipitationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tibetan Plateau vortex‐associated precipitation and its link with the Tibetan Plateau heating anomaly

Lin

Guo

Yao

et al. 2021

Intl Journal of Climatology

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The Tibetan Plateau (TP) is known as the Asian water tower that supplies fresh water for millions of people in Asia. The Tibetan Plateau vortices (TPVs) are one of the major precipitation-producing weather systems over the TP. The characteristics of TPV-associated precipitation from 1979 to 2017 are quantitatively analysed based on three daily precipitation datasets. The influence of TPVs on precipitation is more significant in the warm season (May-September) because the precipitation and TPV activities both peak in the warm season. The TPV-associated precipitation (VAP) dominates the total precipitation over most of the TP in the warm season. The VAP contributes more than 50% of the total precipitation in the warm season over 30% of the area over the TP, particularly in the central TP, while the VAP accounts for more than 25% of the total precipitation in the cold season over about 20% of the area over the TP. Therefore, TPVs are the major systems to produce precipitation on the TP in the warm season, and they are also important in the cold season in certain regions. The interannual variation of VAP is mainly determined by the number, rather than the precipitation intensity, of TPVs. Furthermore, the heating anomaly caused by the TP thermodynamic effect is an influential factor of VAP. Stronger (weaker) TP heating and resulting ascending motion strengthen (attenuate) the convergence near the TP surface and the divergence in the upper troposphere. The thermal adaption-associated circulation generates more (less) TPVs and VAP.

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Climatology of Tibetan Plateau Vortices in Reanalysis Data and a High-Resolution Global Climate Model

Cited by 58 publications

References 38 publications

Falling Trend of Western Disturbances in Future Climate Simulations

Falling Trend of Western Disturbances in Future Climate Simulations

Effects of the atmospheric dynamic and thermodynamic fields on the eastward propagation of Tibetan Plateau vortices

Tibetan Plateau vortex‐associated precipitation and its link with the Tibetan Plateau heating anomaly

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