Impact of moisture divergence on systematic errors in precipitation around the Tibetan Plateau in a general circulation model

Zhang, Yi; Li, Jian

doi:10.1007/s00382-016-3005-y

Cited by 27 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…The evolution of surface elevation resulting from the India-Asia convergence and the creation of the Himalaya-Tibet orogen was the defining event of the Asian continent in the Cenozoic and had global environmental implications. Surface uplift of the orogen has been implicated in the onset and strengthening of the southeast Asian monsoon system (Boos and Kuang, 2010;Zhang et al, 2015) and the position of atmospheric stationary waves (Kutzbach et al, 1989), the evolutionary diversification and biogeographic distribution of fauna and flora in central Asia (Zhao et al, 2016;Yang et al, 2009;Antonelli et al, 2018), and the intensification of chemical weathering of exposed rocks and transport of nutrients to the ocean that contributed to the global atmospheric CO 2 drawdown (Galy et al, 2007;Maffre et al, 2018). Surface elevation also lends a first-order constraint on the crustal and upper mantle dynamics that create topography ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Precipitation δ18O on the Himalaya–Tibet orogeny and its relationship to surface elevation

Shen

Poulsen

2019

Clim. Past

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Abstract. The elevation history of the Himalaya–Tibet orogen is central to understanding the evolution and dynamics of both the India–Asia collision and the Asian monsoons. The surface elevation history of the region is largely deduced from stable isotope (δ18O, δD) paleoaltimetry. This method is based on the observed relationship between the isotopic composition of meteoric waters (δ18Op, δDp) and surface elevation, and the assumption that precipitation undergoes Rayleigh distillation under forced ascent. Here we evaluate how elevation-induced climate change influences the δ18Op–elevation relationship and whether Rayleigh distillation is the dominant process affecting δ18Op. We use an isotope-enabled climate model, ECHAM-wiso, to show that the Rayleigh distillation process is only dominant in the monsoonal regions of the Himalayas when the mountains are high. When the orogen is lowered, local surface recycling and convective processes become important, as forced ascent is weakened due to weaker Asian monsoons. As a result, the δ18Op lapse rate in the Himalayas increases from around −3 to above −0.1 ‰ km−1, and has little relationship with elevation. On the Tibetan Plateau, the meridional gradient of δ18O decreases from ∼1 to ∼0.3 ‰ ∘−1 with reduced elevation, primarily due to enhanced sub-cloud reevaporation under lower relative humidity. Overall, we report that using δ18Op or δDp to deduce surface elevation change in the Himalayan–Tibetan region has severe limitations and demonstrate that the processes that control annual-mean precipitation-weighted δ18Op vary by region and with surface elevation. In summary, we determine that the application of δ18O paleoaltimetry is only appropriate for 7 of the 50 sites from which δ18O records have been used to infer past elevations.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Precipitation δ18O on the Himalaya–Tibet orogeny and its relationship to surface elevation

Shen

Poulsen

2019

Clim. Past

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“…Efforts including advection scheme modification have been made to mitigate the precipitation bias on the steep edge of the TP in GCMs (Yu et al 2015;Zhang and Li 2016). Nevertheless, the resolution dependency of WVT in a model remains to be clarified, which represents an interesting and feasible starting point of departure to investigate the potential sources of wet bias over the TP by considering the following facts: (1) the TP's complex terrain (especially the margin area) is poorly represented by coarse-resolution models; (2) positive systematic errors in precipitable water (PW) has been confirmed in the reanalyses for the southern TP (Wang et al 2017), implying an excessive amount of water vapor flowing into the TP in climate models; and, (3) fact (2) may lead to an unrealistic reaction of hydroclimate processes in a model, hindering the assessment of precipitation bias brought from parameterization schemes.…”

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confidence: 99%

Impact of model resolution on simulating the water vapor transport through the central Himalayas: implication for models’ wet bias over the Tibetan Plateau

et al. 2018

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Current climate models commonly overestimate precipitation over the Tibetan Plateau (TP), which limits our understanding of past and future water balance in the region. Identifying sources of such models' wet bias is therefore crucial. The Himalayas is considered a major pathway of water vapor transport (WVT) towards the TP. Their steep terrain, together with associated small-scale processes, cannot be resolved by coarse-resolution models, which may result in excessive WVT towards the TP. This paper, therefore, investigated the resolution dependency of simulated WVT through the central Himalayas and its further impact on precipitation bias over the TP. According to a summer monsoon season of simulations conducted using the weather research forecasting (WRF) model with resolutions of 30, 10, and 2 km, the study found that finer resolutions (especially 2 km) diminish the positive precipitation bias over the TP. The higher-resolution simulations produce more precipitation over the southern Himalayan slopes and weaker WVT towards the TP, explaining the reduced wet bias. The decreased WVT is reflected mostly in the weakened wind speed, which is due to the fact that the high resolution can improve resolving orographic drag over a complex terrain and other processes associated with heterogeneous surface forcing. A significant difference was particularly found when the model resolution is changed from 30 to 10 km, suggesting that a resolution of approximately 10 km represents a good compromise between a more spatially detailed simulation of WVT and computational cost for a domain covering the whole TP.

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“…The model tends to overestimate the modern precipitation amount and RH on the western Tibetan plateau. This overestimation also exist in earlier version of ECHAM (Roe et al, 2016) and other models such as the LMDZ-iso (Zhang and Li, 2016). The overestimation of total-column-averaged RH might weaken sub-cloud re-evaporation 20 process on the western plateau, and this weaker re-evaporation could potentially lower the meridional d 18 Op gradient in this region.…”

Section: Caveats 15mentioning

confidence: 75%

Precipitation δ18O on the Himalaya-Tibet orogeny and its relationship to surface elevation

Shen¹,

Poulsen²

2018

Preprint

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Abstract. The elevation history of the Himalaya-Tibet orogen is central to understanding the evolution and dynamics of both the Indian-Asia collision and the Asian monsoons. The surface elevation history of the region is largely deduced from stable isotope (δ18O, δD) paleoaltimetry. This method is based on the observed relationship between the isotopic composition of meteoric waters (δ18Op, δDp) and surface elevation, and the assumption that precipitation undergoes Rayleigh distillation under forced ascent. Here we evaluate how elevation-induced climate change influences the δ18Op-elevation relationship and whether Rayleigh distillation is the dominant process affecting δ18Op. We use an isotope-enabled climate model, ECHAM-wiso, to show that the Rayleigh distillation process is only dominant in the monsoonal regions of the Himalayas when the mountains are high. When the orogen is lowered, local surface recycling and convective processes become important as forced ascent is weakened due to weaker Asian monsoons. As a result, the δ18Op lapse rate in the Himalayas increases from around −3 ‰/km to above −0.1 ‰/km, having little relationship with elevation. On the Tibetan Plateau, the meridional gradient of δ18O decreases from ~ 1 ‰/° to ~ 0.3 ‰/° with reduced elevation, primarily due to enhanced sub-cloud re-evaporation under lower relative humidity. Overall, we report that using δ18Op or δDp to deduce surface elevation change in the Himalaya-Tibet region has severe limitations and demonstrate that the processes that control δ18Op vary by region and with surface elevation. In sum, we determine that the application of δ18O-paleoaltimetry is only appropriate for 7 of the 50 sites from which δ18O records have been used to infer past elevations.

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Impact of moisture divergence on systematic errors in precipitation around the Tibetan Plateau in a general circulation model

Cited by 27 publications

References 42 publications

Precipitation <i>δ</i><sup>18</sup>O on the Himalaya–Tibet orogeny and its relationship to surface elevation

Precipitation <i>δ</i><sup>18</sup>O on the Himalaya–Tibet orogeny and its relationship to surface elevation

Impact of model resolution on simulating the water vapor transport through the central Himalayas: implication for models’ wet bias over the Tibetan Plateau

Precipitation δ<sup>18</sup>O on the Himalaya-Tibet orogeny and its relationship to surface elevation

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Impact of moisture divergence on systematic errors in precipitation around the Tibetan Plateau in a general circulation model

Cited by 27 publications

References 42 publications

Precipitation &lt;i&gt;δ&lt;/i&gt;&lt;sup&gt;18&lt;/sup&gt;O on the Himalaya–Tibet orogeny and its relationship to surface elevation

Precipitation &lt;i&gt;δ&lt;/i&gt;&lt;sup&gt;18&lt;/sup&gt;O on the Himalaya–Tibet orogeny and its relationship to surface elevation

Impact of model resolution on simulating the water vapor transport through the central Himalayas: implication for models’ wet bias over the Tibetan Plateau

Precipitation δ&lt;sup&gt;18&lt;/sup&gt;O on the Himalaya-Tibet orogeny and its relationship to surface elevation

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Precipitation <i>δ</i><sup>18</sup>O on the Himalaya–Tibet orogeny and its relationship to surface elevation

Precipitation <i>δ</i><sup>18</sup>O on the Himalaya–Tibet orogeny and its relationship to surface elevation

Precipitation δ<sup>18</sup>O on the Himalaya-Tibet orogeny and its relationship to surface elevation