Influence of Tibetan Plateau autumn snow cover on interannual variations in spring precipitation over southern China

Abstract This study investigates the relationship between spring and summer rainfall in East Asia and the preceding winter and spring snow cover/depth over Eurasia, using station rainfall observations, satellite-observed snow cover, satellite-derived snow water equivalent, and station observations of the number of days of snow cover and snow depth. Correlation analysis shows that snow-depth anomalies can persist from winter to spring whereas snow cover anomalies cannot in most regions of Eurasia. Locally, snow cover and snow-depth anomalies in February are not related in most regions to the north of 50°N, but those anomalies in April display consistent year-to-year variations. The results suggest that the winter snow cover cannot properly represent all the effects of snow and it is necessary to separate the winter and spring snow cover in addressing the snow–monsoon relationship. Spring snow cover in western Siberia is positively correlated with spring rainfall in southern China. The circulation anomalies associated with the western Siberian spring snow cover variations show an apparent wave pattern over the eastern Atlantic through Europe and midlatitude Asia. Spring snow cover over the Tibetan Plateau shows a moderate positive correlation with spring rainfall in southern China. Analysis shows that this correlation includes El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) effects. In contrast to the Indian summer monsoon rainfall for which the ENSO interferes with the snow effects, the Tibetan Plateau snow cover and ENSO work cooperatively to enhance spring rainfall anomalies in southern China. In comparison, ENSO has larger impacts than the snow on spring rainfall in southern China.

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Can the Tibetan Plateau snow cover influence the interannual variations of Eurasian heat wave frequency?

Climate Dynamics ◽

10.1007/s00382-015-2775-y ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 46 (11-12) ◽

pp. 3405-3417 ◽

Cited By ~ 35

Author(s):

Zhiwei Wu ◽

Peng Zhang ◽

Hua Chen ◽

Yun Li

Keyword(s):

Tibetan Plateau ◽

Snow Cover ◽

Heat Wave ◽

Wave Frequency ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

Interannual Variations ◽

Tibetan Plateau Snow Cover

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Interdecadal change in the effect of Tibetan Plateau snow cover on spring precipitation over Eastern China around the early 1990s

Climate Dynamics ◽

10.1007/s00382-021-06035-w ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Chao Zhang ◽

Yuanyuan Guo ◽

Zhiping Wen

Keyword(s):

Tibetan Plateau ◽

Snow Cover ◽

Eastern China ◽

Interdecadal Change ◽

Spring Precipitation ◽

Tibetan Plateau Snow Cover

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Toward role of westerly‐monsoon interplay in linking interannual variations of late spring precipitation over the southeastern Tibetan Plateau

Atmospheric Science Letters ◽

10.1002/asl.1074 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Chengyu Song ◽

Jing Wang ◽

Yanju Liu ◽

Ling Zhang ◽

Yihui Ding ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Tibetan Plateau ◽

Late Spring ◽

Interannual Variations ◽

Spring Precipitation ◽

Southeastern Tibetan Plateau

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Southern Hemisphere Origins for Interannual Variations of Snow Cover over the Western Tibetan Plateau in Boreal Summer

Journal of Climate ◽

10.1175/jcli-d-17-0327.1 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 31 (19) ◽

pp. 7701-7718 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Juan Dou ◽

Zhiwei Wu

Keyword(s):

Indian Ocean ◽

Tibetan Plateau ◽

Snow Cover ◽

Southern Hemisphere ◽

Temperature Anomaly ◽

Western Indian Ocean ◽

Boreal Summer ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

Interannual Variations ◽

Wave Ray

The climate response to the Tibetan Plateau (TP) snow cover (TPSC) has been receiving extensive concern. However, relatively few studies have been devoted to revealing the potential factors that can contribute to the TPSC interannual variability, especially during boreal summer. This study finds that the May Southern Hemisphere (SH) annular mode (SAM), the dominating mode of atmospheric circulation variability in the SH extratropics, exhibits a significant positive relationship with the interannual variations in western TPSC during boreal summer. Observational analysis and numerical experiments manifest that the signal of the May SAM can be “prolonged” by a meridional Indian Ocean tripole (IOT) sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) via atmosphere–ocean interaction. The IOT SSTA pattern persists into the following summer and excites anomalous local-scale zonal–vertical circulation. Subsequently, a tropical dipole rainfall (TDR) mode is induced with precipitation anomalies between the tropical western Indian Ocean and the eastern Indian Ocean–Maritime Continent. Rossby wave ray tracing diagnosis reveals that the wave energies, generated by the latent heat release of the TDR mode, can propagate northward into the western TP. As a response, abnormal cyclone (or anticyclone) and upward (or downward) movement are triggered over the western TP, providing favorable dynamical conditions for more (or less) TPSC. Moreover, the strong May SAM is usually followed by a cold air temperature anomaly over the western TP in summer, which is unfavorable for snow-cover melting, and vice versa. In brief, the IOT SSTA plays an “ocean bridge” role and the TDR mode plays an “atmosphere bridge” role in the process of the May SAM impacting the following summer TPSC variability. The results may provide new insight into the cross-equatorial propagation of the SAM influence.

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Interdecadal Change in the Effect of Tibetan Plateau Snow Cover on Spring Precipitation over Eastern China around the Early 1990s

10.21203/rs.3.rs-641221/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Chao Zhang ◽

Yuanyuan Guo ◽

Zhiping Wen

Keyword(s):

Tibetan Plateau ◽

Snow Cover ◽

Eastern China ◽

Interdecadal Change ◽

Phase Pattern ◽

Spring Precipitation ◽

Interdecadal Shift ◽

Additional Support ◽

The Relationship ◽

Tibetan Plateau Snow Cover

Abstract Previous works extensively investigated the influences of the winter-spring Tibetan Plateau snow cover (TP, TPSC) on climate variability over the East Asia. The present work documents an interdecadal-changed impacts of different spring TPSC anomaly (TPSCA) patterns on spring precipitation over eastern China (SPEC) around the early 1990s. It is found that the correlation of eastern and western TPSCA shifts from negative to positive around 1990. The empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis applying onto the spring TPSCA during 1970–1989 (P1) and during 1991–2017 (P2) adds additional support for such interdecadal change in the relationship between the eastern and western TPSCA. Specifically, the leading EOF (EOF1) mode in P1 shows an out-of-phase pattern with opposite signals lying over the eastern and western TP, while the counterpart in P2 is characterized by an in-phase pattern over the entire TP. Corresponding to more (less) snow cover in the eastern (western) TP in P1, a significant TP cold cyclone (TPCC) and a downstream anticyclone over the western North Pacific are observed. Anomalous southerly flow prevailing east to TPCC could bring the warm-wet air from tropics to the coast of East Asian, which largely enhances the spring precipitation south to Yangtze River Valley (YRV). By contrast, regarding more snow cover both in the eastern and western TP in P2, a relatively northward-displaced and wider TPCC sweeps over the entire TP compared with the TPSC-induced TPCC in P1. Moreover, there are significant sinking anomalies observed in the downstream YRV-HRV region, which leads to suppressed spring precipitation over there via the dry-cold advection process. Hence, these discrepancies of local and downstream atmospheric circulation induced by the out-of-phase and in-phase TPSCA patterns in two epochs play an important role in resulting in the interdecadal shift of the SPEC anomaly pattern around 1990.

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Impacts of Spatiotemporal Anomalies of Tibetan Plateau Snow Cover on Summer Precipitation in Eastern China

Journal of Climate ◽

10.1175/jcli-d-16-0041.1 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 30 (3) ◽

pp. 885-903 ◽

Cited By ~ 33

Author(s):

Chenghai Wang ◽

Kai Yang ◽

Yiling Li ◽

Di Wu ◽

Yue Bo

Keyword(s):

Tibetan Plateau ◽

Snow Cover ◽

River Basin ◽

Yangtze River ◽

Southern China ◽

Yangtze River Basin ◽

Eastern China ◽

Summer Precipitation ◽

The Yangtze River ◽

The Yangtze River Basin

Abstract Tibetan Plateau (TP) snow cover undergoes significant temporal and spatial variations during the winter and spring months. This study investigates the relationship between the spatiotemporal distribution of winter–spring snow cover (SC) over the TP and summer precipitation in eastern China (EC) using the singular value decomposition (SVD) method. Four simulation experiments are designed to validate the results of SVD analysis. Both observations and simulations show that heavier snow cover in the southern TP leads to more rainfall in the Yangtze River basin and northeastern China, and less precipitation in southern China, whereas heavier snow cover in the northern TP results in enhanced rainfall in southeastern and northern China and weakened precipitation in the Yangtze River basin. The linkage is attributed to anomalous westerly winds in the upper troposphere at around 200 hPa and to changes of the southern branch of westerlies at 500 hPa on the south side of the TP, which are caused by lasting diabatic heat anomalies over the TP. The shifts in position of the westerly jet at the exit region and negative anomalies of geopotential height at 500 hPa further result in anomalous anticyclone over the East China Sea and the corresponding 850-hPa water vapor convergence and influence the anomalous summer precipitation belt in EC.

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Spatio-Temporal Variation Characteristics of Snow Depth and Snow Cover Days over the Tibetan Plateau

Water ◽

10.3390/w13030307 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (3) ◽

pp. 307

Author(s):

Chi Zhang ◽

Naixia Mou ◽

Jiqiang Niu ◽

Lingxian Zhang ◽

Feng Liu

Keyword(s):

Tibetan Plateau ◽

Snow Cover ◽

Snow Depth ◽

Feedback Effect ◽

Effect Of Temperature ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

Reanalysis Dataset ◽

Spatio Temporal ◽

The Impact ◽

Main Factor

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.

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Interannual Variations and Prediction of Spring Precipitation over China

Journal of Climate ◽

10.1175/jcli-d-17-0233.1 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 31 (2) ◽

pp. 655-670 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

YuJia You ◽

Xiaojing Jia

Keyword(s):

Regression Model ◽

Yangtze River ◽

Climate Models ◽

Seasonal Forecast ◽

Forecast Skill ◽

Interannual Variations ◽

The Yangtze River ◽

Spring Precipitation ◽

Coupled Climate Models ◽

Time Variations

The interannual variations and the prediction of the leading two empirical orthogonal function (EOF) modes of spring (April–May) precipitation over China for the period from 1951 to 2014 are investigated using both observational data and the seasonal forecast made by six coupled climate models. The leading EOF mode of spring precipitation over China (EOF1-prec) features a monosign pattern, with the maximum loading located over southern China. The ENSO-related tropical Pacific SST anomalies in the previous winter can serve as a precursor for EOF1-prec. The second EOF mode of spring precipitation (EOF2-prec) over China is characterized by a dipole structure, with one pole near the Yangtze River and the other one with opposite sign over the Pearl River delta. A North Atlantic sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly dipole in the preceding March is found contribute to the prec-EOF2 and can serve as its predictor. A physics-based empirical (P-E) model is then formulated using the two precursors revealed by the observational analysis to forecast the variations of EOF1-prec and EOF2-prec. Compared to coupled climate models, which have little skill in forecasting the time variations of the two EOF modes, this P-E model can significantly improve the forecast skill of their time variations. A linear regression model is further established using the time series forecast by the P-E model to forecast the spring precipitation over China. Results suggest that the seasonal forecast skill of the spring precipitation over southeastern China, especially over the Yangtze River area, can be significantly improved by the regression model.

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