Comparison and Analysis of Meteorological Variables Observed from the Glacier Area over the Tianshan Mountains in Kyrgyzstan and China

Abstract

Due to the special natural environment over the glacier area in the Tianshan Mountains, the observation of meteorological data became difficult and is strictly scarce. Using the available data observed from the automatic meteorological station (AMS) installed on the Western Tianshan Mountain Station (WTMS) in Kyrgyzstan, the daily and seasonal variations of meteorological variables including air temperature (AT, °C), air pressure (AP, hPa), relative humidity (RH, %), and wind direction and speed (WD and WS, deg and m/s, respectively), as well as total radiation (TR, W/m2) were primarily analyzed during the period from September 2016 to May 2017. These are compared with the meteorological data obtained from the AMS in the Eastern Tianshan Mountain Station (Daxigou Station, hereafter named as ETMS) in China. Further, the comparison study between the observed data from the WTMS and the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data was performed to test the feasibility of reanalysis data in the vicinity of the Western Tianshan Mountains. The results revealed are as follows: (1) the observed data between the WTMS and ETMS presented high correlations, and the meteorological parameters detected from the ETMS were certainly representative of the variations in the WTMS. (2) The RH in the two regions showed comparatively high values ranging from 40% to 70% indicate the abundant amount of atmospheric water vapor content near the ground in the Tianshan Mountain area. (3) The predominant WD both in the WTMS and ETMS near the ground was along the south-east direction, with the values of WS between 0 and 2 m/s were accounted the largest proportion in two stations. (4) The NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data can reflect the changes in the synoptic weather scale of AT, RH, and AP to some extent. (5) The NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data of AT and RH were underestimated by 7.2% and 45.2% in the WTMS, respectively. Whereas, the values of AP, WD, and WS were overestimated by 83.8%, 28.8%, and 74.3%, respectively over the WTMS.