Tibetan Plateau climate dynamics: recent research progress and outlook

This paper reviews progress in the study of Tibetan Plateau(TP) climate dynamics over the past decade.Several theoretical frameworks, including thermal adaptation and the TP sensible heat(SH) driving air-pump, have been developed to identify the mechanisms responsible for the circulation anomaly produced by thermal forcing of the TP. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the thermal efects of large-scale orography, including the Tibetan and Iranian Plateaus(TIP), are crucial for the formation of the East Asian and South Asian summer monsoons(SASM) because the surface SH of the TIP is the major driver of the water vapor transport required for the genesis of the north branch of the SASM. he large-scale orography of the TP afects the Asian climate through thermal forcing in spring and summer, and mechanical forcing in winter. he TP forcing can also inluence the Asian summer monsoon(ASM) onset over the Bay of Bengal(BOB) by enhancing the BOB warm pool at the surface and by modulating the South Asian High(SAH) in the upper troposphere. On intra-seasonal timescales, the TP thermal forcing signiicantly modulates spring rainfall in southern China and generates the biweekly oscillation of the SAH in summer. Despite climate warming, the atmospheric heat source over the TP, particularly the spring SH,exhibits a clear weakening trend from the 1980 s to 2000 s. his weakening of the spring SH contributed to the anomalous ‘dry in the north’ and ‘wet in the south’ rainfall patern observed over East China. Also discussed are challenges to further understanding the mechanism of TP forcing on the multi-scale variability of the ASM.