Contemporary climatic change over the qinghai-xizang plateau and its response to the green-house effect

Abstract

The knowledge of contemporary climatic change over the Qinghai-Xizang (Tibet) Plateau (QXP) has been inadequate for a long time due to lack of enough observational data. In this paper, on the basis of monthly temperature and precipitation data in 1961–1990 from 48 stations on the QXP, the temperature data are extended backward to 1901 with an empirical orthogonal function (EOF) method, microscopic characteristics of contemporary climatic change over the QXP are analyzed, and the response of the plateau climate to global warming is discussed in combination with atmospheric general circulation model (GCM) outputs. The results show that the plateau climate, as a whole, has been warming since the early part of this century, that the precipitation has generally been increasing during the recent 30 years, and that these climatic trends seem to be related to the enhanced green-house effect induced by increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.