Some aspects of the thermal influences of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau on the atmospheric circulation

Abstract

Considerable attention has been paid to, and significant achievements have been made in the meteorology of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau (hereafter called the plateau for brevity) in recent years. One should mention the recent establishment of an observational network in that region. Through these new observational data many new and important findings were obtained, some of which are summarized in a book “Meteorology Over Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau” [19]. These new research results point towards the dynamical and thermal importance of the plateau in shaping atmospheric circulation systems. The plateau's dynamic effects have long been noticed [3, 2, 5]. Its thermal effects were also pointed out in earlier literature [20, 7] and were studied relatively intensively in recent years. It is the purpose of this paper to give a discussion of the thermal influence of the plateau, starting with estimates of the seasonal variation of the intensity of the heat source over the plateau, followed by a discussion on the influence of the heat source on the atmospheric circulation. The role of convective activity in maintaining the large-scale summer circulation over the plateau is described next. Finally, some comparisons between the effects of the plateau and of the tropical oceans on summer atmospheric circulations are given.