Abstract
The Yarlung Zangbo River (YZR) is the largest river system in the Tibetan Plateau, and its basin is one of the centers of human economic activity in Tibet. Large uncertainties exist in several previous climate change studies in this basin because of limited climate observations. In this paper, we used a meteorological drought index (Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index, SPEI) and a newly-released gridded climate forcing dataset based on high-quality climate station data to re-evaluate climate change in the YZR Basin during the period of 1961–2014. Results showed that precipitation experienced a statistically insignificant increasing trend at a rate of 6.32 mm/10 years, and its annual mean was 512.40 mm. The basin was sensitive to climate change in terms of the air temperature that significantly increased at the rate of 0.32 °C/10 years. This warming rate was obviously larger than that in many other regions. Analysis of SPEI showed that the basin had no obvious statistical trends in the number of dry/wet episodes, but the severity of dry episode aggravated in terms of duration and magnitude. This study provides a reliable analysis of climate change in the YZR Basin, and suggests this large Tibetan river basin is sensitive to climate change.
Highlights
The Yarlung Zangbo River (YZR) is the largest in Tibet and located at the highest altitude in the world with an average elevation of greater than 4600 m above sea level
In the YZR Basin, average precipitation increases considerably from upstream to downstream with the mean of 512.40 mm for the period of 1961–2014 (Table 2). This is determined by the Indian Ocean water system as moisture is carried from the Indian Ocean to the inner region [12]
0.5-degree precipitation and air temperature dataset with a high precision. This is different from the previous studies just using limited point climate station data
Summary
The Yarlung Zangbo River (YZR) is the largest in Tibet and located at the highest altitude in the world with an average elevation of greater than 4600 m above sea level. It originates from the Chamyungdung glacier at an elevation of 5200 m in the south-central Tibet. The basin is long in the east-west direction and narrow in the south-north direction. Climate of the YZR Basin plays a significant role in the formation and development of atmosphere circulation, climate change, and inclement weather in the Tibetan Plateau [1,2,3]
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