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Temporal variability of evapotranspiration and its response to westerly and monsoon circulation over the Tibetan Plateau

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Abstract

Westerlies and monsoons converge over the Tibetan Plateau, yet their influence on evapotranspiration in the area is largely unknown. We analyzed the variability of evapotranspiration (ET) over the Tibetan Plateau and its response to the large-scale westerly and monsoon circulation. The results show that the annual mean ET is 414.2 ± 18.32 mm over the Tibetan Plateau. The annual ET has large interannual variability and exhibits trends that differ significantly among sub-regions (southwest, southeast, north regions). The Webster-Yang index (WYI) (Westerly index, WI) showed a fluctuating decreasing (increasing) trend with an interannual variability of 22.1% (6.4%) during the study period. The ensemble empirical mode decomposition analysis (EEMD) demonstrates that the WI dominates the 5-year scale variation of ET in the southeast, the WYI dominates the 5-year scale variation of ET in the southwest and the interannual scale variation of ET in the north, and the interaction between WYI and WI dominates the inter-decadal scale variation of ET in the southwest and southeast. WYI and WI regulate ET by influencing climatic environmental conditions. In the southeast region, the enhanced WYI significantly increases the temperature, which induces the depletion of soil moisture and thus reduces ET. These processes play a dominant role in regulating ET, while the temperature increase, improving vegetation greenness and consequently accelerating ET, plays a secondary role. In the southwest, the increase in WYI increases temperature and decreases the vapor pressure difference (VPD), as well as the rising temperature increases soil moisture and consequently ET. These processes dominate in WYI regulating ET, while the VPD decrease, reducing ET, plays a secondary role. In the northern region, the enhanced WYI decreases VPD, and thus reduces ET.

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Data availability

All data used in the study are freely available online from the corresponding data sources cited in the article.

Code availability

All codes used in this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

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Funding

This work was jointly supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (91637106) and (42205071), and the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research (STEP) program (grant no. 2019QZKK0102).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Plateau Atmospheric and Environment Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, College of Atmospheric Sciences, Chengdu University of Information Technology, Chengdu, 610225, China

    Zesu Yang, Yu Zhang, Jian Zeng & Yulei Qi

  2. Institute of Arid Meteorology, Key Laboratory of Arid Climatic Change and Reducing Disaster of Gansu Province; Key Open Laboratory of Arid Climatic Change and Disaster Reduction of CMA, CMA, Lanzhou, 730020, Gansu, China

    Ping Yue, Qiang Zhang & Liang Zhang

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  1. Zesu Yang
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Contributions

ZY and PY conceived the study. ZY, PY, YZ, and QZ performed the analyses and wrote the initial draft of the manuscript. All authors contributed to the interpretation of the results, discussion of the associated mechanisms, and refinement of the paper.

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Correspondence to Ping Yue.

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The manuscript has not been submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration. The manuscript has not been published previously (partly or in full) unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work. Our study is not split up into several parts to increase the number of submissions and submitted to various journals or to one journal over time. No data has been fabricated or manipulated (including images) to support our conclusions. No data or text by others are presented as if they were our own (“plagiarism”).

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I consent to the publication of the article entitled “Temporal Variability of Evapotranspiration and Its Response to Westerly and Monsoon Circulation over the Tibetan Plateau” by Z. Yang, P. Yue, Y. Zhang, Q. Zhang, L. Zhang, and J. Zeng, Y. Q in the journal Theoretical and Applied Climatology.

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Yang, Z., Yue, P., Zhang, Y. et al. Temporal variability of evapotranspiration and its response to westerly and monsoon circulation over the Tibetan Plateau. Theor Appl Climatol 150, 1111–1129 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-022-04202-5

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