IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v9y2018i1d10.1038_s41467-018-06762-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Influence of Tibetan Plateau snow cover on East Asian atmospheric circulation at medium-range time scales

Author

Listed:
  • Wenkai Li

    (Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology
    Nanjing University
    Nanjing University)

  • Weidong Guo

    (Nanjing University
    Nanjing University)

  • Bo Qiu

    (Nanjing University
    Nanjing University)

  • Yongkang Xue

    (University of California)

  • Pang-Chi Hsu

    (Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology)

  • Jiangfeng Wei

    (Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology)

Abstract

The responses of atmospheric variability to Tibetan Plateau (TP) snow cover (TPSC) at seasonal, interannual and decadal time scales have been extensively investigated. However, the atmospheric response to faster subseasonal variability of TPSC has been largely ignored. Here, we show that the subseasonal variability of TPSC, as revealed by daily data, is closely related to the subsequent East Asian atmospheric circulation at medium-range time scales (approximately 3–8 days later) during wintertime. TPSC acts as an elevated cooling source in the middle troposphere during wintertime and rapidly modulates the land surface thermal conditions over the TP. When TPSC is high, the upper-level geopotential height is lower, and the East Asia upper-level westerly jet stream is stronger. This finding improves our understanding of the influence of TPSC at multiple time scales. Furthermore, our work highlights the need to understand how atmospheric variability is rapidly modulated by fast snow cover changes.

Suggested Citation

  • Wenkai Li & Weidong Guo & Bo Qiu & Yongkang Xue & Pang-Chi Hsu & Jiangfeng Wei, 2018. "Influence of Tibetan Plateau snow cover on East Asian atmospheric circulation at medium-range time scales," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 9(1), pages 1-9, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:9:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-06762-5
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-06762-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-06762-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-018-06762-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:9:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-06762-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.