›› 2011, Vol. 28 ›› Issue (4): 669-676.

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Spatiotemporal Distribution of Climate Change over the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau in 21st Century

CHENG Zhi-gang1,2, LIU Xiao-dong2, FAN Guang-zhou1, BAI Ai-juan1, WANG Bing-yun1   

  1. 1. Sichuan Province Key Laboratory of Plateau Atmosphere and Environment, College of Atmospheric Sciences, Chengdu University of Information Technology, Chengdu 610225, China;
    2. State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710075, China
  • Received:2010-05-24 Revised:2010-07-14 Online:2011-08-25 Published:2011-09-06

Abstract: By comparing the data calculated with 23 models from the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, precipitation data from GPCP and air temperature data from ECMWF, the spatiotemporal distribution of air temperature and precipitation over the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau in 21st century was analyzed by using the output data of 11 models and the high-resolution dynamical downscaling data on A1B scenarios. The result of 11-model ensemble mean shows that the air temperature and precipitation will increase by 1.98 ℃ and 0.06 mm/d in the mid-21st century compared with those in 2008, but by 3.93 ℃ and 0.24 mm/d at the end-21st century. The results analyzed with the dynamical downscaling reveal that there will be the significant wetting and warming trends over the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau in next 100 years, the spatial distribution of precipitation will be quite uneven, and there is a big uncertainty in simulating precipitation variation.

Key words: model ensemble, dynamical downscaling, climate change, air temperature, precipitation, Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

CLC Number: 

  • P467