Abstract
In this paper, we explored the trends of the atmospheric moisture budget, precipitation, and streamflow in summer during 1961 to 2005 and possible correlations between them by using the linear regression method in the Yangtze River basin, China. The results indicate that: (1) increasing tendencies can be detected in the atmospheric moisture budget, precipitation and streamflow in the Yangtze River basin; however, the significant increasing trends occur only in the atmospheric moisture budget and precipitation in the middle and lower Yangtze River basin; (2) both the ratio of summer moisture budget to annual moisture budget and the ratio of summer precipitation to annual precipitation exhibit a significant increasing trend in the Yangtze River basin. The ratio of summer streamflow to annual streamflow is in a significant increasing trend in Hankou station. Significant increasing summer precipitation can be taken as the major controlling factor responsible for the higher probability of flood hazard occurrences in the Yangtze River basin. The consecutively increasing summer precipitation is largely due to the consistently increasing moisture budget; (3) the zonal geopotential height anomaly between 1991 and 2005 and 1961 and 1990 is higher from the south to the north, which to a large degree, limits the northward propagation of the summer monsoon to north China. As a result, the summer moisture budget increases in the middle and lower Yangtze River basin, which leads to more summer precipitation. This paper sheds light on the changing properties of precipitation and streamflow and possible underlying causes, which will be greatly helpful for better understanding of the changes of precipitation and streamflow in the Yangtze River basin.
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Acknowledgements
This paper was financially supported by the Chinese Meteorological Administration (No. ccsf 2007–35), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.: 40701015), and fully supported by a Direct Grant from the Faculty of Social Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Project No. 4450183) and by the Outstanding Overseas Chinese Scholars Fund from CAS (The Chinese Academy of Sciences). We would like to thank the National Climate Centre in Beijing and CWRC of the Yangtze River in Wuhan for providing valuable climate and hydrological datasets. Thanks should be extended to Dr. Guo Hua, Dr. Zeng Xiaofan, Dr. Liu Bo, and Dr. Zhai Jianqing for their constructive discussions. Last but not least, we should extend our cordial thanks to two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions which greatly improved the quality of this paper.
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Zhang, Z., Zhang, Q., Xu, C. et al. Atmospheric moisture budget and floods in the Yangtze River basin, China. Theor Appl Climatol 95, 331–340 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-008-0010-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-008-0010-z