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Original Articles

The Relationship between Precipitation and Airflow over the Tibetan Plateau in Boreal Summer

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Pages 176-182 | Received 19 Dec 2011, Accepted 16 Jan 2012, Published online: 03 Jul 2015
 

Abstract

Based on the observation data and the re-analysis datasets, the variability and the circulation features influencing precipitation in the Tibetan Plateau (TP) are investigated. Taking into account the effects of topography, surface winds are deconstructed into flow-around and flow-over components relative to the TP. Climatologically, the flow-around component mainly represents cyclonic circulation in the TP during the summer. The transition zone of total precipitation in the summer parallels the convergence belt between the southerlies and the northerlies of the flow-over component. The leading mode of rainfall anomalies in the TP has a meridional dipole structure, and the first principal component (PC1) mainly depicts the variation of rainfall in the southern T P. The wet southern TP experiences strengthened flow-over, which in turn mechanistically favors intensified ascent forced by the flow-over component. In addition, variations in the Indian summer monsoon (ISM) have an important role in influencing the flow over the southern TP, and the ISM ultimately impacts the precipitation over southern TP.

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