Abstract
Snow in the earth-atmosphere system contains high impact, but its correlation with meteorological factors at multi-time components has not been fully addressed over the warming Tibetan Plateau (TP). Here, the correlations between snow cover and six meteorological factors were examined at inter-annual, annual, and intra-seasonal components (2003–2018) reconstructed by the ensemble empirical mode decomposition method. Firstly, inter-annual snow cover area with significant decreases in summer (− 0.076% per year) and autumn (− 0.318% per year) shows strong correlations with air temperature (r < − 0.70 in spring and summer), precipitation (r > 0.57 in summer and winter), and shortwave radiation (r < − 0.45 in summer and winter). Moreover, a maximum lead-lag correlation coefficient (MLLCC) was proposed to derive the lead-lag correlations at the two remaining components. In annual components representing the annual cycle of the original time series, shortwave radiation leads snow cover variations by 50 days, and that snow cover leads wind speed variations by 42 days due to the influence of snow on the atmospheric circulation. In the high-frequency intra-seasonal component associated with the event scale, precipitation, shortwave radiation, and air humidity lead snow cover variation by 2 to 6 days. Meanwhile, snow cover leads longwave radiation variations by 3 to 5 days due to the surface albedo being changed by snow. Specifically, intra-seasonal correlations are more significant in winter-spring due to larger snow cover variability. Additionally, with climate warming, the correlations of snow cover with temperature and radiations have been enhanced with increases of the MLLCCs by 0.05–0.29. However, its correlation with precipitation has been weakened with the decrease of MLLCCs by 0.09–0.22. The results of this study will help to deepen our understandings of hydroclimatic dynamics under climate warming in the TP.
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source of Heihe River and Shiyang River); (R2) Indus and Tarim Basin (Pamir Hindu Kush and Karakoram); (R3) inner of TP; (R4) Salween Basin, Mekong Basin, Yangtze Basin, and Yellow Basin; (R5) the Upper Brahmaputra Basin and East Himalaya
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Funding
This work was supported by the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program (STEP; Ministry of Science and Technology, MOST; grant no. 2019QZKK0207), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC; grant nos. 91747203 and 91647108), the West Light Foundation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant no. 29Y929621), and the Special Fund of the State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering (grant no. 20185044312).
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XQ and JL designed the study and are responsible for the integrity of the manuscript. SW and JW contributed ideas to the analysis. HJ, XC, HL, and FL gave suggestions and comments in helping improve the clarity of this presentation for an early version of this work.
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Qiao, X., Liu, J., Wang, S. et al. Lead-lag correlations between snow cover and meteorological factors at multi-time scales in the Tibetan Plateau under climate warming. Theor Appl Climatol 146, 1459–1477 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-021-03802-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-021-03802-x