scholarly journals Remote Effects of IOD and ENSO on Motivating the Atmospheric Pattern Favorable for Snowfall Over the Tibetan Plateau in Early Winter

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongyan Shen ◽  
Zhiqiang Gong ◽  
Boqi Liu ◽  
Yipeng Guo ◽  
Xiaoli Feng ◽  
...  

The interannual variation of snowfall over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) in early winter (November–December) and its related atmospheric attribution are clarified. Meanwhile, the influence of tropical sea surface temperatures (SSTs) on TP snowfall is investigated by diagnostic analyses and Community Atmosphere Model (CAM5) simulations. The leading mode of TP snowfall in early winter features a spatially uniform pattern with remarkable interannual variability. It is found that the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) are main external forcing factors for TP snowfall. Positive IOD with positive ENSO and positive IOD with neutral ENSO cases both have remote impact on motivating Southern Eurasia (SEA) pattern, which can induce an anomalous cyclone around the TP. The corresponding anomalous ascending motion and cold air in the mid-upper troposphere provide the dynamical and thermal conditions for heavy snowfall. The low-level southwesterly winds are enhanced over the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal, bringing abundant water vapor into the TP for excessive snowfall. Furthermore, CAM5 simulation experiments forced by IOD- and ENSO-related SST anomalies are performed to verify their combined and independent effects on TP snowfall in early winter. It is confirmed that either positive IOD or El Niño has certain impacts on motivating circulation anomalies favorable for snowfall over the TP. However, IOD plays a leading role in producing the excessive snowfall-related atmospheric conditions, and there is an asymmetric influence of ENSO and IOD on the TP snowfall.

2014 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 520-530 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoxin Yang ◽  
Tandong Yao ◽  
Daniel Joswiak ◽  
Ping Yao

AbstractTemperature signals in ice-core δ18O on the Tibetan Plateau (TP), particularly in the central and southern parts, continue to be debated because of the large scale of atmospheric circulation. This study presents ten ice-core δ18O records at an annual resolution, with four (Malan, Muztagata, Guliya, and Dunde) in the northern, three (Puruogangri, Geladaindong, Tanggula) in the central and three (Noijin Kangsang, Dasuopu, East Rongbuk) in the southern TP. Integration shows commonly increasing trends in δ18O in the past century, featuring the largest one in the northern, a moderate one in the central and the smallest one in the southern TP, which are all consistent with ground-based measurements of temperature. The influence of atmospheric circulation on isotopic signals in the past century was discussed through the analysis of El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and of possible connections between sea surface temperature (SST) and the different increasing trends in both ice-core δ18O and temperature. Particularly, El Niño and the corresponding warm Bay of Bengal (BOB) SST enhance the TP ice-core isotopic enrichment, while La Niña, or corresponding cold BOB SST, causes depletion. This thus suggests a potential for reconstructing the ENSO history from the TP ice-core δ18O.


Atmosphere ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 738
Author(s):  
Jianping Duan ◽  
Peili Wu ◽  
Zhuguo Ma

Volcanic eruptions are a major factor influencing global climate variability, usually with a cooling effect. The magnitudes of post-volcanic cooling from historical eruptions estimated by tree-ring reconstructions differ considerably with the current climate model simulations. It remains controversial on what is behind such a discrepancy. This study investigates the role of internal climate variability (i.e., El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) warm phase) with a regional focus on the Tibetan Plateau (TP), using tree-ring density records and long historical climate simulations from the fifth Coupled Model Intercomparsion Project (CMIP5). We found that El Niño plays an important role behind the inconsistencies between model simulations and reconstructions. Without associated El Niño events, model simulations agree well with tree-ring records. Divergence appears when large tropical eruptions are followed by an El Niño event. Model simulations, on average, tend to overestimate post-volcanic cooling during those periods as the occurrence of El Niño is random as part of internal climate variability.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-56
Author(s):  
Shuai Hu ◽  
Tianjun Zhou ◽  
Bo Wu

AbstractThe year-to-year variations of Tibetan Plateau (TP) summer rainfall have tremendous climate impacts on the adjoining and even global climate, attracting extensive research attention in recent decades to understand the underlying mechanism. In this study, we investigate an open question of how the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) influences the TP precipitation. We show that the developing ENSO has significant impacts on the summer rainfall over the southwestern TP (SWTP), which is the second EOF mode of the interannual variability of summer rainfall over the TP. Moisture budget indicates that both the suppressed vertical motion and the deficit of moisture contribute to the reduction of SWTP rainfall during El Niño’s developing summer, with the former contribution four times larger than the latter. Moist static energy analyses indicate that the anomalous advection of climatological moist enthalpy by anomalous zonal wind is responsible for the anomalous descending motions over the SWTP. The El Niño-related southward displacements of the South Asian high and the upper-level cyclonic anomalies over the west of TP stimulated by the suppressed Indian summer monsoon precipitation are two key processes dominating the anomalous zonal moist enthalpy advection over SWTP. Meanwhile, the India-Burma monsoon trough is strengthened during El Niño developing summer, which prevents the water vapor into the SWTP, and thus contributes to the deficit of summer SWTP rainfall. Our results help to understand the complicated ENSO-related air-sea interaction responsible for the variability of TP precipitation and have implications for seasonal prediction of the TP climate.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Gao ◽  
Tandong Yao ◽  
Guangjian Wu ◽  
Camille Risi

<p>The El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) drives interannual variability of rainfall, ecosystems and floods in many parts of the world. Climates in the Tibetan Plateau (TP) called as the “water tower” may be impacted by ENSO, but the character of ENSO impact and its mechanism are still not well understood. Here we present the isotopic profiles (δ<sup>18</sup>O) from a new Zangsegangri (ZSGR) ice core drilled in 2013 in the central TP covering 200 years to understand the ENSO impact on the TP climate. The imprint of ENSO is evidenced at annual scale as recorded in ice core. This ice core δ<sup>18</sup>O record also reveal contributions of south/north moisture sources change with the transition of El nino/La nina events which are triggered by the tropical sea surface temperature, associated with the change of convections along the moisture transport paths. These rapid changes lead to the variation of ZSGR ice core δ<sup>18</sup>O, namely El Nino events result in lower δ<sup>18</sup>O in the ZSGR ice core record. The mechanism of ENSO impact on the ZSGR ice core δ<sup>18</sup>O are quantified with LMDZiso model. The significant impact of ENSO activity on the Tibetan ice core record during the past centuries implies the importance of ENSO in land surface processes in the TP.</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (24) ◽  
pp. 9869-9879 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianping Duan ◽  
Lun Li ◽  
Zhuguo Ma ◽  
Jan Esper ◽  
Ulf Büntgen ◽  
...  

Large volcanic eruptions may cause abrupt summer cooling over large parts of the globe. However, no comparable imprint has been found on the Tibetan Plateau (TP). Here, we introduce a 400-yr-long temperature-sensitive network of 17 tree-ring maximum latewood density sites from the TP that demonstrates that the effects of tropical eruptions on the TP are generally greater than those of extratropical eruptions. Moreover, we found that large tropical eruptions accompanied by subsequent El Niño events caused less summer cooling than those that occurred without El Niño association. Superposed epoch analysis (SEA) based on 27 events, including 14 tropical eruptions and 13 extratropical eruptions, shows that the summer cooling driven by extratropical eruptions is insignificant on the TP, while significant summer temperature decreases occur subsequent to tropical eruptions. Further analysis of the TP August–September temperature responses reveals a significant postvolcanic cooling only when no El Niño event occurred. However, there is no such cooling for all other situations, that is, tropical eruptions together with a subsequent El Niño event, as well as extratropical eruptions regardless of the occurrence of an El Niño event. The averaged August–September temperature deviation ( Tdev) following 10 large tropical eruptions without a subsequent El Niño event is up to −0.48° ± 0.19°C (with respect to the preceding 5-yr mean), whereas the temperature deviation following 4 large tropical eruptions with an El Niño association is approximately 0.23° ± 0.16°C. These results indicate a mitigation effect of El Niño events on the TP temperature response to large tropical eruptions. The possible mechanism is that El Niño events can weaken the Indian summer monsoon with a subsequent decrease in rainfall and cooling effect, which may lead to a relatively high temperature on the TP, one of the regions affected by the Indian summer monsoon.


<em>Abstract</em>.-Declines in recruitment of temperate anguillid eels have occurred in the past 30 years in many areas of their species ranges. The cumulative effects of anthropogenic changes to their freshwater growth habitats are likely contributors to reductions in population sizes, but changes in ocean-atmospheric conditions in the ocean also appear to be contributing to the declines. This paper reviews how changes in the ocean may contribute to recruitment declines by affecting the spawning location of silver eels, larval feeding success, or the transport of their leptocephalus larvae by ocean currents. Recruitment of European eels <em>Anguilla anguillla </em>has shown correlations with the North Atlantic Oscillation and specific changes in ocean conditions in the Sargasso Sea where spawning and development occurs. The American eel <em>A. rostrata </em>spawns in an area that overlaps with the European eel and so could also be affected by these types of changes. Recruitment of Japanese eels <em>A. japonica </em>appears to be correlated to the El Niño Southern Oscillation index and latitudinal changes in salinity fronts in the western North Pacific. The general spawning and recruitment patterns of the temperate Australasian shortfin eels <em>A. australis </em>and New Zealand longfin eels <em>A. dieffenbachii </em>in the western South Pacific are similar to those of the northern temperate anguillids and also may be affected by El Niño-related factors. The changes in ocean conditions associated with atmospheric forcing or a warming of the ocean could alter the biological characteristics of the surface layer where leptocephali feed, due to changes in productivity or community structure, in addition to having possible effects on larval transport and location of the spawning areas by silver eels. Changes in ocean-atmospheric conditions could result in lower feeding success and survival of leptocephali, or increased retention in offshore areas due to changes in the location of spawning areas, resulting in reductions in recruitment.


Author(s):  
Bohao Cui ◽  
Yili Zhang ◽  
Linshan Liu ◽  
Zehua Xu ◽  
Zhaofeng Wang ◽  
...  

Soil erosion is a serious ecological problem in the fragile ecological environment of the Tibetan Plateau (TP). Rainfall erosivity is one of the most important factors controlling soil erosion and is associated with the El Niño southern oscillation (ENSO). However, there is a lack of studies related to the spatial distribution and temporal trends of rainfall erosivity on the TP as a whole. Additionally, the understanding of the general influence of ENSO on rainfall erosivity across the TP remains to be developed. In this study, long-term (1971–2020) daily precipitation data from 91 meteorological stations were selected to calculate rainfall erosivity. The analysis combines co-kriging interpolation, Sen’s slope estimator, and the Mann–Kendall trend test to investigate the spatiotemporal patten of rainfall erosivity across the TP. The Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) and multivariate ENSO Index (MEI) were chosen as ENSO phenomenon characterization indices, and the relationship between ENSO and rainfall erosivity was explored by employing a continuous wavelet transform. The results showed that an increasing trend in annual rainfall erosivity was detected on the TP from 1971 to 2020. The seasonal and monthly rainfall erosivity was highly uneven, with the summer erosivity accounting for 60.36%. The heterogeneous spatial distribution of rainfall erosivity was observed with an increasing trend from southeast to northwest. At the regional level, rainfall erosivity in the southeastern TP was mainly featured by a slow increase, while in the northwest was more destabilizing and mostly showed no significant trend. The rainfall erosivity on the whole TP was relatively high during non-ENSO periods and relatively low during El Niño/La Niña periods. It is worth noting that rainfall erosivity in the northwest TP appears to be more serious during the La Niña event. Furthermore, there were obvious resonance cycles between the rainfall erosivity and ENSO in different regions of the plateau, but the cycles had pronounced discrepancies in the occurrence time, direction of action and intensity. These findings contribute to providing references for soil erosion control on the TP and the formulation of future soil conservation strategies.


2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (11) ◽  
pp. 5889-5898 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanbin Lei ◽  
Yali Zhu ◽  
Bin Wang ◽  
Tandong Yao ◽  
Kun Yang ◽  
...  

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document