Diagnosis and Simulation on the Relationship between Snow Depth over Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau and Summer Precipitation in Eastern China

  • LI Yan ,
  • YAN Jiahai ,
  • ZHANG Dongfeng
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  • Shanxi Climate Center, Taiyuan 030006, Shanxi, China

Received date: 2017-01-20

  Online published: 2018-04-28

Abstract

Snow cover over Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP) is an important component of climate system in East Asia.Its depth shows strong inter-annual variability.It is understood that the variation of snow depth over QTP is strongly associated to the action of Asian monsoon.Summer precipitation is a constituent of the Asian monsoon, which has been used as an indicator of Asian summer monsoon activity.We employed climate diagnosis and numerical simulation method to test the mechanism that how the winter-spring (from December-to-May) snow depth anomaly over QTP effects the following summer (from June-to-August) precipitation distribution in eastern China.Firstly, this study used a remote sensing dataset with 25 km horizontal resolution and gridded (0.5°×0.5°) precipitation data from 1980 to 2010 to analysis the relationship between winter-spring snow depth over QTP and the following summer precipitation change over eastern China.Then, we setup sensitivity experiments with a regional climate model (RegCM4.1) to test the possible mechanism.The results show that:(1) Based on the snow depth data and the gridded precipitation data, there is a "-+-+" summer precipitation distribution pattern with latitude change (north to south) over eastern China in less winter-spring snow years, while there is a "+-+-" pattern in more winter-spring snow years.(2) The sensitivity experiments simulations show that a "+-"and "+-+" summer precipitation patterns from north to south in eastern China with the forcing of the less snow cover in winter-spring and spring over QTP, respectively.If there is more snow in winter-spring and spring over QTP, the following summer precipitation will present a contrary spatial distribution.(3) The simulations also show that anomaly of winter-spring snow depth over the Plateau can influence atmospheric circulation and lead to the anomaly of following summer precipitation in eastern China.The snow depth anomaly in spring plays a more important role than that in winter in effecting on summer precipitation and atmospheric circulation over eastern China.Although the paper has tried to explain how the snow cover over QTP effecting the following summer precipitation in eastern China, the climate anomaly is dominated by the combination of multi-impact factors.Moreover, the condition parameters in the sensitivity experiments are different from the actual situation.Hence, some difference exists between the simulation and observation data.Short-term climate prediction is a very difficult scientific question in atmospheric sciences, further study about the relationship between the abnormal atmospheric signal and the following climate effecting is needed to improve the skill of short-term climate prediction.

Cite this article

LI Yan , YAN Jiahai , ZHANG Dongfeng . Diagnosis and Simulation on the Relationship between Snow Depth over Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau and Summer Precipitation in Eastern China[J]. Plateau Meteorology, 2018 , 37(2) : 317 -324 . DOI: 10.7522/j.issn.1000-0534.2017.00040

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