Relationship between the Tibetan Plateau heating and East Asian summer monsoon rainfall

Hsu, Huang‐Hsiung; Liu, Xin

doi:10.1029/2003gl017909

Cited by 168 publications

(134 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…(B) Thermodynamic Effect: In summer, the TP acts as an elevated heat source and moisture sink affecting the atmospheric circulation (e.g. Hsu and Liu 2003;Sato and Kimura 2007). (C) Surface Indirect Effect: The complex terrain and variable boundary conditions of the TP create a unique weather and climatic system in the middle troposphere above 4,000 m (e.g.…”

Section: Importance Of the Tibetan Plateaumentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent land cover changes on the Tibetan Plateau: a review

2009

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This paper reviews the land cover changes on the Tibetan Plateau during the last 50 years partly caused by natural climate change and, more importantly, influenced by human activities. Recent warming trends on the plateau directly influence the permafrost and snow melting and will impact on the local ecosystem greatly. Human activities increased rapidly on the plateau during the last half century and have significant impacts on land use. Significant land cover changes on the Tibetan Plateau include permafrost and grassland degradation, urbanization, deforestation and desertification. These changes not only impact on local climate and environment, but also have important hydrological implications for the rivers which originate from the plateau. The most noticeable disasters include the flooding at the upper reaches of Yangtze River and droughts along the middle and lower reaches of Yellow River. Future possible land cover changes under future global climate warming are important but hard to assess due to the deficits of global climate model in this topographically complex area. Integrated investigation of climate and ecosystems, including human-beings, are highly recommended for future studies.

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Section: Importance Of the Tibetan Plateaumentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent land cover changes on the Tibetan Plateau: a review

2009

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“…Wu et al (2002) emphasized an important role of Tibetan heating on the evolution of atmospheric circulation. Relationships among the Tibetan anomalous heating, the Asian atmospheric circulation and rainfall have also been addressed (Hsu and Liu, 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inter‐decadal variability of Tibetan spring vegetation and its associations with eastern China spring rainfall

Wang

Zhao²,

et al. 2009

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index of NOAA/AVHRR, the European Centre for MediumRange Weather Forecast reanalysis and the Climate Prediction Center Merged Analysis of Precipitation data for the period 1982-1999, the relationship between the inter-decadal variability of spring (April-May) vegetation over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and spring rainfall over eastern China was investigated. The results show that when the vegetation over the TP increases in spring, the spring rainfall enhances to the north of the Yangtze River and reduces to the south of the river. This relationship is well supported by the feedback of vegetation to climate and the background atmospheric circulation changes.Corresponding to more vegetation over the TP in spring, the surface sensible heating increases and local air temperature at the surface and in the troposphere also increases. The air volume expands, and the divergence becomes dominant in high-level atmosphere over the TP, with an increase in the upper-tropospheric geopotential height. This indicates an upper-tropospheric intensified ridge over the TP in spring.The intensified ridge extends toward eastern China. An anomalous anti-cyclone appears over the TP and eastern China, with anomalous divergence in the upper troposphere and anomalous convergence in the lower troposphere. Meanwhile, an anomalous cyclonic circulation appears in the lower troposphere over the northern region of eastern China, accompanying with the local anomalous upward motion. Therefore, the spring rainfall enhances over these regions. To the south of the upper-tropospheric anomalous anti-cyclonic centre, however, the upper easterlies from the western North Pacific Ocean retard while reaching the southeast coasts of China. This may result in the upper-tropospheric anomalous convergence, with anomalous divergence and an anomalous anti-cyclonic circulation in the lower troposphere over southeastern China and its coasts. Consequently, the spring rainfall weakens over these regions.

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“…In particular, El Niñ o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) explains a significant part of the interannual Asian monsoon variability by displacing the heat sources in the tropics (Webster and Yang 1992;Wang et al 2001), although such relationship is nonstationary (Kumar et al 1999; R. . Other reported factors affecting seasonal precipitation in China are the Arctic Oscillation/North Atlantic Oscillation (AO/NAO; Gong and Wang 2003; Sung et al 2006), the stationary planetary waves (Chen et al 2005), the Antarctic Oscillation (AAO; Nan and Li 2003), dynamic and thermal effects of the Tibetan Plateau (Wu and Zhang 1998;Hsu and Liu 2003), and the Eurasian snow cover (Zhang et al 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The 2009/10 Drought in China: Possible Causes and Impacts on Vegetation

Barriopedro

Gouveia

Trigo

et al. 2012

Journal of Hydrometeorology

212

125

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Several provinces of China experienced an intense drought episode during 2009 and 2010. The drought was particularly severe in southwestern and northern China, where the accumulated precipitation from May 2009 to April 2010 was about 25% less than normal. The decline of accumulated precipitation over northern China was mostly noticeable during the summer season of 2009 and it was comparable to recent dry episodes. The southwestern China drought resulted from a sequence of dry months from summer 2009 to winter 2010, corresponding to the driest event since at least 1951. The suppression of rainfall in summer over both regions was in agreement with a weakened broad-scale South Asian summer monsoon, possibly influenced by an El Niñ o developing phase, whereas the extremely negative phases of the Arctic Oscillation during the winter of 2010 may have contributed to the persistence of the drought in southwestern China. The assessment of the associated impacts indicates that water reservoirs were severely affected with a ;20% reduction in the nationwide hydroelectrical production during the drought event. Furthermore, an analysis of the normalized difference vegetation index data reveals that large cropland sectors of northern and eastern China experienced up to 8 months of persistently stressed vegetation between May 2009 and July 2010, while southwestern China was relatively less affected. Such different regional vegetative responses are interpreted in terms of the land-cover type, agriculture management, and their dependence on seasonal precipitation and water availability for irrigation.

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Relationship between the Tibetan Plateau heating and East Asian summer monsoon rainfall

Cited by 168 publications

References 19 publications

Recent land cover changes on the Tibetan Plateau: a review

Recent land cover changes on the Tibetan Plateau: a review

Inter‐decadal variability of Tibetan spring vegetation and its associations with eastern China spring rainfall

The 2009/10 Drought in China: Possible Causes and Impacts on Vegetation

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