The Tibetan Plateau (TP) is subjected to strong interactions among the atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, and biosphere. The Plateau exerts huge thermal forcing on the mid-troposphere over the mid-latitude of the Northern Hemisphere during spring and summer. This region also contains the headwaters of major rivers in Asia and provides a large portion of the water resources used for economic activities in adjacent regions. Since the beginning of the 1980s, the TP has undergone evident climate changes, with overall surface air warming and moistening, solar dimming, and decrease in wind speed. Surface warming, which depends on elevation and its horizontal pattern (warming in most of the TP but cooling in the westernmost TP), was consistent with glacial changes. Accompanying the warming was air moistening, with a sudden increase in precipitable water in 1998. Both triggered more deep clouds, which resulted in solar dimming. Surface wind speed declined from the 1970s and started to recover in 2002, as a result of atmospheric circulation adjustment caused by the differential surface warming between Asian high latitudes and low latitudes.The climate changes over the TP have changed energy and water cycles and has thus reshaped the local environment. Thermal forcing over the TP has weakened. The warming and decrease in wind speed lowered the Bowen ratio and has led to less surface sensible heating. Atmospheric radiative cooling has been enhanced, mainly through outgoing longwave emission from the warming planetary system and slightly enhanced solar radiation reflection. The trend in both energy terms has contributed to the weakening of thermal forcing over the Plateau. The water cycle has been significantly altered by the climate changes. The monsoon-impacted region (i.e., the southern and eastern regions of the TP) has received less precipitation, more evaporation, less soil moisture and less runoff, which has resulted in the general shrinkage of lakes and pools in this region, although glacier melt has increased. The region dominated by westerlies (i.e., central, northern and western regions of the TP) received more precipitation, more evaporation, more soil moisture and more runoff, which together with more glacier melt resulted in the general expansion of lakes in this region. The overall wetting in the TP is due to both the warmer and moister conditions at the surface, which increased convective available potential energy and may eventually depend on decadal variability of atmospheric circulations such as Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation and an intensified Siberian High. The drying process in the southern region is perhaps related to the expansion of Hadley circulation. All these processes have not been well understood.
The robustness of the atmospheric circulation and precipitation response to future anthropogenic surface warming
