Recent climate changes over the Tibetan Plateau and their impacts on energy and water cycle: A review

The climate changes had weakened the thermal forcing over the TP. The warming and wind stilling lowered the Bowen ratio and led to less surface sensible heating. Atmospheric radiative cooling was enhanced, mainly by outgoing longwave emission from the warming planetary system and slightly by solar radiation reflection. Both processes contributed to the thermal forcing weakening over the Plateau. The water cycle was also altered by the climate changes. The wind stilling may have weakened water vapor exchange between the Asia monsoon region and the Plateau and thus led to less precipitation in the monsoon-impacted southern and eastern Plateau, but the warming enhanced land evaporation. Their overlap resulted in runoff reduction in the southern and eastern Plateau regions. By contrast, more convective precipitation over the central TP was triggered under the warmer and moister condition and yielded more runoff; meanwhile, the solar dimming weakened lake evaporation. The two together with enhanced glacier melts contributed to the lake expansion in the central TP.