Decreasing Influence of Summer Snow Cover Over the Western Tibetan Plateau on East Asian Precipitation Under Global Warming

In recent years, some studies emphasized the influence of western Tibetan Plateau summer snow on the East Asian summer precipitation. With the temperature rise in the past decades, the snow cover over the western Tibetan Plateau in summer has significantly decreased. This raises the question whether the impact of the Tibetan Plateau snow has changed. The present study identifies a prominent change in the influence of the western Tibetan Plateau snow cover on the East Asian summer precipitation. Before the early 2000’s, positive precipitation anomalies extend from the southeastern Tibetan Plateau through the Yangtze River to Japan and Korea and negative anomalies cover southeast China corresponding to more Tibetan Plateau snow cover. After the early 2000’s, with the reduction of snow cover variability, below-normal and above-normal summer precipitation occurs over northern China-Mongolia and northeast Asia, respectively, corresponding to more Tibetan Plateau snow cover. The change in the influence of the Tibetan Plateau snow on the East Asian summer precipitation is associated with an obvious change in the atmospheric circulation anomaly pattern. Before the early 2000’s, the wind anomalies display a south-north contrast pattern with anomalous convergence along the Yangtze River. After the early 2000’s, an anomalous cyclone occupies Northeast China with anomalous southerlies and northerlies over northeast Asia and northern China, respectively. The Tibetan Plateau snow cover variation after the early 2000’s is associated with the northeast Indian summer precipitation. The model experiments confirm that the weakened influence of summer western Tibetan Plateau snow cover on the East Asian atmospheric circulation and precipitation with the reduced snow cover anomalies.

Structure of the Western Tibetan Vortex inconsistent with a thermally-direct circulation

The Western Tibetan Vortex (WTV) is a large-scale circulation pattern identified from year-to-year circulation variability, which was used to understand the causal mechanisms for slowdown of the glacier melting over the western Tibetan Plateau (TP). A recent argument has suggested the WTV is the set of wind field anomalies resulting from variability in near-surface air temperatures over the western TP (above 1500 m), which, in turn, is likely driven by the surface net radiation. This study thereby evaluates the above putative thermal-direct mechanism. By conducting numerical sensitivity experiments using a global atmospheric circulation model, SAMIL, we find a WTV-like structure cannot be generated from a surface thermal forcing imposed on the western TP. A thermally-direct circulation generated by the surface or near surface heating is expect to cause upward motions and a baroclinic structure above it. In contrast, downward motions and a quasi-barotropic are observed in the vertical structure of the WTV. Besides, we find variability of the surface net radiation (sum of the surface shortwave and longwave net radiation) over the western TP can be traced back to the WTV variability based on ERA5 data. The anticyclonic (cyclonic) WTV reduces (increases) the cloudiness through the anomalous downward (upward) motions, causes more (less) input shortwave net radiation and thereby more (less) surface net radiations, resulting in the warmer (cooler) surface and near-surface air temperature over the western TP. The argument is constructive in encouraging examination of the radiative balance processes that complements previous studies.