scholarly journals Review "A chironomid-based mean July temperature inference model from the south-east margin of the Tibetan Plateau, China", Enlou Zhang et al

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anonymous
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanghang Ren ◽  
Kun Yang ◽  
Han Wang

<p>As region that is highly sensitive to global climate change, the Tibetan Plateau (TP) experiences an intra-seasonal soil water deficient due to the reduced precipitation during the South Asia monsoon (SAM) break. Few studies have investigated the impact of the SAM break on TP ecological processes, although a number of studies have explored the effects of inter-annual and decadal climate variability. In this study, the response of vegetation activity to the SAM break was investigated. The data used are: (1) soil moisture from in situ, satellite remote sensing and data assimilation; and (2) the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Solar-Induced chlorophyll Fluorescence (SIF). We found that in the region impacted by SAM break, which is distributed in the central-eastern part of TP, photosynthesis become more active during the SAM break. And temporal variability in the photosynthesis of this region is controlled mainly by solar radiation variability and has little sensitivity to soil moisture. We adopted a diagnostic process-based modeling approach to examine the causes of enhanced plant activity during the SAM break on the central-eastern TP. Our analysis indicates that active photosynthetic behavior in the reduced precipitation is stimulated by increases in solar radiation absorbed and temperature. This study highlights the importance of sub-seasonal climate variability for characterizing the relationship between vegetation and climate.</p>


Tectonics ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wen-Jun Zheng ◽  
Pei-Zhen Zhang ◽  
Wei-Peng Ge ◽  
Peter Molnar ◽  
Hui-Ping Zhang ◽  
...  

2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (12) ◽  
pp. 2067-2079 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Shaman ◽  
Eli Tziperman

Abstract An atmospheric stationary wave teleconnection mechanism is proposed to explain how ENSO may affect the Tibetan Plateau snow depth and thereby the south Asian monsoons. Using statistical analysis, the short available record of satellite estimates of snow depth, and ray tracing, it is shown that wintertime ENSO conditions in the central Pacific may produce stationary barotropic Rossby waves in the troposphere with a northeastward group velocity. These waves reflect off the North American jet, turning equatorward, and enter the North African–Asian jet over the eastern Atlantic Ocean. Once there, the waves move with the jet across North Africa, South Asia, the Himalayas, and China. Anomalous increases in upper-tropospheric potential vorticity and increased wintertime snowfall over the Tibetan Plateau are speculated to be associated with these Rossby waves. The increased snowfall produces a larger Tibetan Plateau snowpack, which persists through the spring and summer, and weakens the intensity of the south Asian summer monsoons.


2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (8) ◽  
pp. 3009-3024 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liguang Wu ◽  
Xiaofang Feng ◽  
Mei Liang

The South Asia high (SAH) is a prominent circulation system of the Asian summer monsoon, exerting profound influences on the weather and climate in China and surrounding regions. Its formation and maintenance is closely associated with strong summertime continental heating in the form of surface sensible heat flux and the latent heat release in connection with the Asian monsoon. In this study, the possible response of the South Asian high intensity to the thermal condition change in the Tibetan Plateau is examined with four modern reanalysis datasets, including the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA), MERRA version 2 (MERRA-2), the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) interim reanalysis (ERA-Interim), and the Japanese 55-year Reanalysis (JRA-55). Despite the surface air warming in the four modern reanalysis datasets, reduced surface wind speed in three of the reanalysis datasets, and decreased surface sensible heat flux in the MERRA-2 dataset, there is no statistically significant trend in the SAH intensity over the period 1979–2015. One of the possible reasons is that the response of the upper-level circulation to the thermal condition change of the Tibetan Plateau occurs mainly in the 200-hPa subtropical westerly jet stream, which is located far away from the center of the South Asian high. Thus the South Asian high intensity is not particularly sensitive to the thermal condition change of the Tibetan Plateau, while the center of the South Asian high intensity over the plateau exhibits a northward trend over the period.


2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xingwen Jiang ◽  
Yueqing Li ◽  
Song Yang ◽  
Kun Yang ◽  
Junwen Chen

Abstract The impacts of summer atmospheric heat source over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) on regional climate variation have attracted extensive attention. However, few studies have focused on possible causes of the interannual variation of atmospheric heat source over the TP. Total heat (TH) is generally composed of three components: surface sensible heat, latent heat release of condensation (LH), and radiative convergence. In this study, it is found that interannual variation of summer TH is dominated by LH in the central and eastern TP. The atmospheric circulation patterns associated with the TH over the TP in June are different from those in July and August. Large TH is accompanied by a cyclone centered over the South China Sea in June, which is replaced by an anticyclone in July and August. The interannual variation of July–August TH over the central and eastern TP is significantly affected by convection around the western Maritime Continent (WMC) that modulates the LH over the southeastern TP. Enhanced WMC convection induces an anticyclone to the south of the TP, which favors water vapor transport to the southeastern TP and thus an increase in precipitation. Enhanced convection over the southeastern TP may exert a positive feedback on local precipitation through pumping more water vapor from the southern boundary. Both observations and model simulations indicate that the enhanced WMC convection can induce the anticyclone to the south of the TP and convection–circulation is important for maintenance of the anticyclone.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Callegaro ◽  
Felipe Matsubara Pereira ◽  
Dario Battistel ◽  
Natalie M. Kehrwald ◽  
Broxton W. Bird ◽  
...  

Abstract. The fire history of the Tibetan Plateau over centennial to millennial timescales is still unknown. Recent ice core studies reconstruct fire history over the past few decades but do not extend through the Holocene. Lacustrine sedimentary cores, however, provide continuous records of large-scale and local environmental modifications due to their accumulation of specific organic molecular markers throughout the past millennia. In order to reconstruct Holocene fire events and vegetation changes occurring on the south-eastern Tibetan Plateau and the surrounding areas, we improved and integrated previous analytical methods. The multi-proxy procedure was applied to samples retrieved from Paru Co, a small lake located in the Nyainqentanglha Mountains (29°47'45.6" N; 92°21'07.2" E; 4845 m a.s.l.). The investigated biomarkers include n-alkanes as indicators of vegetation, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) as combustion proxies, faecal sterols and stanols (FeSts) as indicators of the presence of humans or grazing animals and finally monosaccharide anhydrides (MAs) as specific markers of vegetation burning processes. Relatively high concentrations of both MAs and PAHs demonstrate intense local biomass burning activity during the early Holocene (10.9–10.7 cal ky BP), which correspond to a drier climate following deglaciation. High concentrations of MAs but not PAHs between 10.7–9 cal ky BP suggest a period of regional biomass burning followed by a decreasing fire trend through the mid-late Holocene. This fire history is consistent with local vegetation changes reconstructed from both n-alkanes and regional pollen records, where vegetation types depend on the centennial-scale intensity of monsoon precipitation. FeSts were below detection limits for most of the samples, suggesting limited direct human influences on fire regime and vegetation changes in the lake's catchment. Climate is the main influence on fire activity recorded in Paru Co over millennial timescales, where biomass burning fluctuates in response to alternating warm/humid and cool/dry periods.


2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (18) ◽  
pp. 25051-25082 ◽  
Author(s):  
Z. Cong ◽  
S. Kang ◽  
K. Kawamura ◽  
B. Liu ◽  
X. Wan ◽  
...  

Abstract. To quantitatively evaluate the effect of carbonaceous aerosols on the south edge of the Tibetan Plateau, aerosol samples were collected weekly from August 2009 to July 2010 at Mt. Everest (Qomolangma Station for Atmospheric and Environmental Observation and Research, briefly QOMS, 28.36° N, 86.95° E, 4276 m a.s.l.). The samples were analyzed for organic carbon (OC), elemental carbon (EC), water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC) and major ions. The average concentrations of OC, EC and WSOC were 1.43, 0.25 and 0.77 μg m−3, respectively. The concentration levels of OC and EC at QOMS are comparable to those at high elevation sites on the southern slopes of the Himalayas (Langtang and NCO-P), but three to six times lower than those at Manora Peak, India and Godavari, Nepal. Sulfate was the most abundant anion species followed by nitrate, accounting for 25 and 12% of total ionic mass, respectively. Ca2+ was the most abundant cation species (annual average of 0.88 μg m−3). The various aerosol compositions showed distinctive seasonality. The dust loading, represented by Ca2+ concentration, was relatively constant throughout the year. While OC, EC and other ionic species (NH4+, K+, NO3−, and SO42−) exhibited a pronounced peak in the pre-monsoon period and a minimum in the monsoon season. Similar seasonal trends of aerosol composition were also reported previously from the southern slope of the Himalayas, such as Langtang and NCO-P. This phenomenon indicates that both slopes of Himalayas share a common atmospheric environment regime. The strong correlation of OC and EC in QOMS aerosols with K+ and levoglucosan indicates that they were mainly originated from biomass burning. The active fire spots observed by MODIS and their backward trajectories further demonstrate that in pre-monsoon season, agricultural and forest fires in the northern India and Nepal were most likely sources of carbonaceous aerosol at QOMS. In addition to large-scale atmospheric circulation, the unique mountain/valley breeze system in the Himalayas can also have an important effect on air pollutant transport.


Author(s):  
Ye Wang ◽  
Xuanhua Chen ◽  
Yaoyao Zhang ◽  
Zheng Yin ◽  
Andrew V. Zuza ◽  
...  

Although the Cenozoic Indo-Asian collision is largely responsible for the formation of the Tibetan plateau, the role of pre-Cenozoic structures in controlling the timing and development of Cenozoic deformation remains poorly understood. In this study we address this problem by conducting an integrated investigation in the northern foreland of the Tibetan plateau, north of the Qilian Shan-Nan Shan thrust belt, NW China. The work involves field mapping, U-Pb detrital-zircon dating of Cretaceous strata in the northern foreland of the Tibetan plateau, examination of growth-strata relationships, and construction and restoration of balanced cross sections. Our field mapping reveals multiple phases of deformation in the area since the Early Cretaceous, which was expressed by northwest-trending folding and northwest-striking thrusting that occurred in the early stages of the Early Cretaceous. The compressional event was followed immediately by extension and kinematically linked right-slip faulting in the later stage of the Early Cretaceous. The area underwent gentle northwest-trending folding since the late Miocene. We estimate the magnitude of the Early Cretaceous crustal shortening to be ∼35%, which we interpret to have resulted from a far-field response to the collision between the Lhasa and the Qiangtang terranes in the south. We suggest that the subsequent extension in the Early Cretaceous was induced by orogenic collapse. U-Pb dating of detrital zircons, sourced from Lower Cretaceous sedimentary clasts from the north and the south, implies that the current foreland region of the Tibetan plateau was a topographic depression between two highland regions in the Early Cretaceous. Our work also shows that the Miocene strata in the foreland region of the northern Tibetan plateau was dominantly sourced from the north, which implies that the rise of the Qilian Shan did not impact the sediment dispersal in the current foreland region of the Tibetan plateau where this study was conducted.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yinglin Tian ◽  
Deyu Zhong

<p>The Tibetan Plateau (TP), known as the “World Roof”, has significant influences on hydrological and atmospheric circulation at both regional and global scale. As the Sanjiangyuan Region (SJY) supplies water resources to the adjacent river basin and the TP could exert strong thermal forcing on the atmosphere over Asian monsoon region, adequate understand of the climate change over this region and its underlying mechanisms is of great importance. Based on gridded data provided by China Meteorological Administration (CMA), a continuous warming trend higher than that over elsewhere in China has been observed over the TP during 1985-2014, especially in the cold season (0.69 K/decade) and over the SJY (1.0 K/decade). On the basis of ERA interim reanalysis datasets, this paper analyzed the factors facilitating this warming trend in the SJY from the perspective of energy transport. At first, the local processes involved were investigated by calculating partial temperature changes using the surface energy budget equation. Then the horizontal convection of heat was quantified by summing the heat flux across the boundaries of the SJY. Finally, a Lagrangian heat source diagnostic method was developed to identify the major heat source. As the results indicating, among all the local heat sources, the enhanced downward longwave radiation reflected to surface air and the increasing upward longwave radiation emitted by warmer land surface were responsible for the pronounced surface air warming. However, the changes in surface sensible and latent heat fluxes had a reduced warming effect on the surface air. As for the non-local horizontal heat sources, rising horizontal heat flux from the south, west and east boundaries into the SJY contributed to the higher surface temperature of the SJY. In winter season, the heat flows stemmed from the South Himalayan vein into the SJY played a dominant role. Moreover, the higher the temperature over the SJY was, the more inclined this heat source was to Nepal.</p>


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