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Response of hydrological cycle to recent climate changes in the Tibetan Plateau

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Abstract

The Tibetan Plateau (TP) surfaces have been experiencing an overall rapid warming and wetting while wind speed and solar radiation have been declining in the last three decades. This study investigated how climate changes influenced the hydrological cycle on the TP during 1984∼2006. To facilitate the analysis, a land surface model was used to simulate surface water budget at all CMA (China Meteorological Administration) stations on the TP. The simulated results were first validated against observed ground temperature and observation-derived heat flux on the western TP and observed discharge trends on the eastern TP. The response of evaporation and runoff to the climate changes was then analyzed. Major finding are as follows. (1) Surface water balance has been changed in recent decades. Observed precipitation shows insignificant increasing trends in central TP and decreasing trends along the TP periphery while evaporation shows overall increasing trends, leading to decreased discharge at major TP water resource areas (semi-humid and humid zones in the eastern and southern TP). (2) At the annual scale, evaporation is water-limited in dry areas and energy-limited (radiation and air temperature) in wet areas; these constraints can be interpreted by the Budyko-curve. Evaporation in autumns and winters was strongly controlled by soil water storage in summers, weakening the dependence of evaporation on precipitation at seasonal scales. (3) There is a complementary effect between the simulated actual evaporation and potential evaporation, but this complementary relationship may deviate from Bouchet’s hypothesis when vapor pressure deficit (or air temperature) is too low, which suppresses the power of vapor transfer.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Land Surface Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 2871, Beijing, 100085, China

    Kun Yang & Jun Qin

  2. The State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Baisheng Ye & Zhaoye Zhou

  3. Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, P. O. Box 9804, Beijing, 100029, China

    Degang Zhou

  4. Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, 100081, China

    Bingyi Wu

  5. Department of Micrometeorology, University of Bayreuth, 95440, Bayreuth, Germany

    Thomas Foken

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  1. Kun Yang
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  2. Baisheng Ye
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  3. Degang Zhou
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  4. Bingyi Wu
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  5. Thomas Foken
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  6. Jun Qin
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  7. Zhaoye Zhou
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Correspondence to Kun Yang.

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Yang, K., Ye, B., Zhou, D. et al. Response of hydrological cycle to recent climate changes in the Tibetan Plateau. Climatic Change 109, 517–534 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0099-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0099-4

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