Abstract
Located in the intermediate zone between the taiga forests in Siberian Plain and the deserts in Central Asia, the Altai Mountains are of scientific concern about Holocene climate change in the past decades. However, researches about modern climate changes are relatively scarce in the Altai Mountains. In this study, temporal- spatial changes of air temperature and precipitation were investigated systematically in the Altai Mountains based on fifteen meteorological records over the period of 1970-2015. The Altai Mountains experienced a rapid warming trend with a rate of 0.41°C/decade and an insignificantly wetting trend at a rate of 4.82 mm/decade during 1970-2015. The magnitude of temperature trend was negatively correlated with elevation in cold season (spring and winter), whereas that was positively correlated with elevation in warm season (summer and autumn). The cyclonic anomalies to the northwest and an anticyclonic anomalies to the southeast blocked the southward cold air and then provided the favorable condition for an increasing precipitation via the southwesternly wind in the Altai Mountains.
Highlights
The AR5 of IPCC proposes a significantly warming trend during the past century on earth [1]
The magnitude of temperature trend was negatively correlated with elevation in cold season, whereas that was positively correlated with elevation in warm season
We found that the variations of mean annual precipitation (MAP) were complex than that of mean annual temperature (MAT) in different subregions and different elevations of the Altai Mountains, being similar with their changes in the Tianshan Mountains [9]
Summary
The AR5 of IPCC proposes a significantly warming trend during the past century on earth [1]. Due to few water vapor supplies from the near oceans (i.e., the North Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean), glaciers and snow in high-elevation regions of ACAZ (i.e., the Tianshan Mountains and the Altai Mountains) become the most important solid water reservoir and support the oasis agriculture developments and urban operations. They are in a state of rapid melting heavily affected by the climate warming, leading to the water resources at risk [6,7,8,9,10].
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