Arid Zone Research ›› 2021, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (5): 1199-1206.doi: 10.13866/j.azr.2021.05.01

• Weather and Climate •     Next Articles

Spatial heterogeneity of annual precipitation δ18O over the Tibetan Plateau based on the use of a geographical detector

XI Wentao1,2(),GAO Jing1,3   

  1. 1. Key laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Land Surface Process, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
    2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
    3. Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
  • Received:2021-02-25 Revised:2021-06-28 Online:2021-09-15 Published:2021-09-24

Abstract:

The annual precipitation δ18O from 24 stations over the Tibetan Plateau was analyzed based on the use of a geographical detector, which was applied to probe the spatial heterogeneity of precipitation δ18O and to quantitatively understand the drivers. This method was used to successfully reflect the spatial heterogeneity of the annual precipitation δ18O over the Tibetan Plateau. The latitude, altitude, longitude, and precipitation amounts respectively explained 0.82, 0.71, 0.57, and 0.49 of the spatial variation in annual precipitation δ18O. Additionally, the combined effects of different factors enhanced the explanation of spatial variation. The possible influences of latitude, precipitation amount, altitude, and temperature on annual precipitation δ18O and seasonal variations in influential factors that cause the spatial heterogeneity of precipitation δ18O were discussed. We conclude that latitude has the strongest explanatory power in relation to the spatial heterogeneity of annual, summer, and winter mean precipitation δ18O over the Tibetan Plateau.

Key words: Tibetan Plateau, precipitation δ18O, spatial heterogeneity, geographical detector