The effects of the thermal anomalies over the Tibetan Plateau and its vicinities on climate variability in China

Abstract

The evident effects of the thermal anomalies over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and its vicinities are summarized and discussed in this paper. By the singular value decomposition (SVD) technique and numerical simulations of the effect of the snow depth anomaly over the TP, it is shown that the snow depth anomaly, especially in winter, is one of the factors influencing precipitation in China, and the winter snow anomaly is more important than the spring one. The relations between the sensible heat anomaly over the TP and the intensity of the South China Sea summer monsoon (SCSSM) are studied, too, and two key areas of the sensible heat anomaly over the TP are found. The relationships between the South Asia High (SAH) and the precipitation in the years with typical droughts or floods in the mid to lower valleys of the Yangtze River (MLVYR) and North China are investigated in some detail. It is found that not only the intensity of the SAH over the TP, but also the 100-hPa height in a large area influences the precipitation in the above two regions. The effects of the SAH on the onsets of the tropical Asian summer monsoon (TASM) including the SCSSM and the tropical Indian summer monsoon (TISM) are studied as well. It is found that the onset times of both the SCSSM and the TISM are highly dependent upon the latitudinal position of the SAH center.