Spatiotemporal variations of annual shallow soil temperature on the Tibetan Plateau during 1983–2013

Zhu, Fuxin; Cuo, Lan; Zhang, Yongxin; Luo, Jing–Jia; Lettenmaier, Dennis P.; Lin, Yilun; Liu, Zhe

doi:10.1007/s00382-017-4008-z

Cited by 34 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 77 publications

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“…The underlying soil temperatures at 5 and 10 cm depth increased respectively at 0.49 ± 0.18 and 0.43 ± 0.18°C per decade in the cold season (Figure 2c,e) and at 0.48 ± 0.20 and 0.53 ± 0.21°C per decade in the warm season (Figure 2d,f). Spatially, near‐surface temperature exhibited a relatively stronger warming trend in the north consistent with previous results 32,33 . This is probably related to the lower heat loss from surface evapotranspiration due to the lower precipitation, sparser vegetation cover and associated low soil heat capacity in the arid region of the north 32 …”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 89%

“…Spatially, near‐surface temperature exhibited a relatively stronger warming trend in the north consistent with previous results 32,33 . This is probably related to the lower heat loss from surface evapotranspiration due to the lower precipitation, sparser vegetation cover and associated low soil heat capacity in the arid region of the north 32 …”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 89%

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Hydrological impacts of near‐surface soil warming on the Tibetan Plateau

Liu

Zhang

et al. 2020

Permafrost & Periglacial

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Climate warming can cause intense changes in regional soil freeze/thaw dynamics and thus exerts strong effects on hydrological processes. Because permafrost conditions vary widely across the Tibetan Plateau (TP), a better understanding the potential influences of permafrost types is helpful to project future hydrological changes.Using multilayer soil temperatures from 45 meteorological stations, this study investigated regional near-surface soil warming on the TP and related hydrological implications in two typical alpine basins. In cold and warm seasons, nearsurface soil temperature gradient (0-5 cm) showed significant increasing trends with average rates of 0.31 ± 0.13 and 0.19 ± 0.08 C per decade (p < 0.05), respectively. This implied increasingly more heat transferred downward from the ground surface annually, which also appeared in the deeper layer (5-10 cm) but was relatively weaker. Our results also reflected that increasing warming tended to cause higher baseflow (0.66 m 3 s −1 a −1 , p < 0.10) and quicker groundwater recession (−0.05 per decade, p < 0.05) in the permafrost-dominated (>60%) basin, but had much weaker hydrological effects in the low-permafrost (<20%) basin. The contrasting responses suggested similar hydrological impacts related to the fraction of permafrost coverage as in the circum-Arctic regions. Our study implies that the warming-induced weakening of freezing process has complicated hydrological impacts in the Tibetan basins dependent on the fraction of permafrost coverage. K E Y W O R D Shydrological regimes, near-surface soil warming, permafrost coverage fraction, Tibetan Plateau

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 89%

Hydrological impacts of near‐surface soil warming on the Tibetan Plateau

Liu

Zhang

et al. 2020

Permafrost & Periglacial

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“…Different from the overall thicker snow cover in the northern high latitude region, snow in the Tibetan Plateau often melts quickly due to strong solar radiation, and snow cover is generally shallow and ephemeral, with overall low albedo of fresh snow and limited insulation effects (Wang et al, 2020;Zheng et al, 2020). Therefore, snow cover in the Tibetan Plateau may have a cooling effect on underlying soil temperature due to the dissipated latent heat resulted from frequent snow melting or sublimation (Zhu et al, 2017). Moreover, snow meltwater that infiltrates into the soil could result in additional soil temperature fluctuations due to soil heat transport through convection and soil water phase change (Scherler et al, 2010;Luo et al, 2014).…”

Section: Environmental Controls On Tibetan Plateau Permafrost Distribmentioning

confidence: 99%

Progress and Challenges in Studying Regional Permafrost in the Tibetan Plateau Using Satellite Remote Sensing and Models

Jiang

Zheng

et al. 2020

Front. Earth Sci.

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Recent climate change has induced widespread soil thawing and permafrost degradation in the Tibetan Plateau. Significant advances have been made in better characterizing Tibetan Plateau soil freeze/thaw dynamics, and their interaction with local-scale ecohydrological processes. However, factors such as sparse networks of in-situ sites and short observational period still limit our understanding of the Tibetan Plateau permafrost. Satellite-based optical and infrared remote sensing can provide information on land surface conditions at high spatial resolution, allowing for better representation of spatial heterogeneity in the Tibetan Plateau and further infer the related permafrost states. Being able to operate at “all-weather” conditions, microwave remote sensing has been widely used to retrieve surface soil moisture, freeze/thaw state, and surface deformation, that are critical to understand the Tibetan Plateau permafrost state and changes. However, coarse resolution (>10 km) of current passive microwave sensors can add large uncertainties to the above retrievals in the Tibetan Plateau area with high topographic relief. In addition, current microwave remote sensing methods are limited to detections in the upper soil layer within a few centimetres. On the other hand, algorithms that can link surface properties and soil freeze/thaw indices to permafrost properties at regional scale still need improvements. For example, most methods using InSAR (interferometric synthetic aperture radar) derived surface deformation to estimate active layer thickness either ignore the effects of vertical variability of soil water content and soil properties, or use site-specific soil moisture profiles. This can introduce non-negligible errors when upscaled to the broader Tibetan Plateau area. Integrating satellite remote sensing retrievals with process models will allow for more accurate representation of Tibetan Plateau permafrost conditions. However, such applications are still limiting due to a number of factors, including large uncertainties in current satellite products in the Tibetan Plateau area, and mismatch between model input data needs and information provided by current satellite sensors. Novel approaches to combine diverse datasets with models through model initialization, parameterization and data assimilation are needed to address the above challenges. Finally, we call for expansion of local-scale observational network, to obtain more information on deep soil temperature and moisture, soil organic carbon content, and ground ice content.

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“…Other than the indirect influence of soil on global warming through the regulation of atmospheric CO 2 (Zhou et al, 2019), this study indicates that soils and soil CO 2 contribute directly to the greenhouse effect. Previous studies also identified soil warming as one of the consequences of atmospheric CO 2induced greenhouse effect (García-Suárez and Butler, 2006;Zhu et al, 2018). In a 1967-2002 study of US soils, researchers found that the average temperature of 10-and 100-cm deep soils increased by 0.31°C per decade (Hu and Feng, 2003;Hicks Pries et al, 2018).…”

Section: Changes In Soil and Soil Co 2 May Contribute To Global Warmingmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Additionally, soil heat flux was found to result in 7.6% of the net radiation being stored within soils during the day, acting as a heat source to the surface soil layers at night, accounting for more than 50% of the net nighttime radiation in the Antarctic during warmer months (Alves and Soares, 2016). Furthermore, long-term temperature monitoring in the Tibetan Plateau , revealed that soil temperatures were generally higher than surface air temperatures (Zhu et al, 2018). Therefore, either the solar radiation or the "ball of surface radiation" that was kicked back to the surface soil by the atmospheric CO 2 (i.e., the downward long-wave radiation) could be partly retained in the soil and thus potentially form a cache of heat (Fig.…”

Section: The Complementary Roles Of Atmospheric Air and Soil In The Gmentioning

confidence: 99%

An ignored key link in greenhouse effect: Soil and soil CO2 slow heat loss

Zhang

Shen

et al. 2020

Soil Ecol. Lett.

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The ever-increasing atmospheric CO 2 concentration is a key driver of modern global warming. However, the low heat capacity of atmosphere and strong convection processes in the troposphere both limit heat retention. Given the higher heat capacity and CO 2 concentration in soil compared to the atmosphere, the direct contributions of soil to the greenhouse effect may be significant. By experimentally manipulating CO 2 concentrations both in the soil and the atmosphere, we demonstrated that the soil-retained heat and the slower soil heat transmission decrease the amount of heat energy leaking from the earth. Furthermore, the soil air temperature was affected by soil CO 2 concentration, with the highest value recorded at 7500 ppm CO 2. This study indicates that soil and soil CO 2 , together with atmospheric CO 2 , play a crucial role in the greenhouse effect. The spatial and temporal heterogeneity of soils and soil CO 2 should be further investigated, given their potentially significant influence on global climate change.

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Spatiotemporal variations of annual shallow soil temperature on the Tibetan Plateau during 1983–2013

Cited by 34 publications

References 77 publications

Hydrological impacts of near‐surface soil warming on the Tibetan Plateau

Hydrological impacts of near‐surface soil warming on the Tibetan Plateau

Progress and Challenges in Studying Regional Permafrost in the Tibetan Plateau Using Satellite Remote Sensing and Models

An ignored key link in greenhouse effect: Soil and soil CO2 slow heat loss

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