Modulation of Snow on the Daily Evolution of Surface Heating Over the Tibetan Plateau During Winter: Observational Analyses

Abstract

AbstractStudying the daily evolution of turbulent fluxes modulated by snowfall over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) is of great importance to understand the features of the change in the TP heat source/sink and its contribution to Asian atmospheric circulation and weather processes. However, the lack of data over the TP restricts the detailed studies. Based on observations from four sites of the Third TP Atmospheric Scientific Experiment, the process of surface energy balance impacted by snow is investigated. The results show that the surface albedo largely increases on the first day of snow and then slowly decreases. Correspondingly, the sensible heat (H) flux sharply decreases after snow and then gradually recovers to the original level during the following approximately 10 days. The latent heat (LE) flux becomes more active and stronger after snowfall and persists for a longer period than H, since the soil moisture may still contribute to a high LE after snowmelt. As the synergistic result of H and LE modulated by snow, the surface turbulent heating (i.e., the sum H and LE) of the TP decreases at the early period of snow events and then even enhances to a higher level after the snowmelt than before snow. Comparison analyses reveal that the impact of snow on the H and LE over the TP is much stronger than over similar latitude low‐altitude regions in North America and Europe, which may be partly attributed to the larger and more drastic change of the surface net solar radiation associated with snow processes in the TP. The ERA5 and CFS reanalysis data sets fail to reproduce the modulation of snow on the heat fluxes, which suggests that the physical schemes of the models should be further improved based on the observational analyses over TP. This study may help further understand the detailed physical processes of modulation of snow events on Asian weather processes during winter and is also conducive to the improvement of surface parameterization schemes of models.