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Abstract:
The Tibetan Plateau (TP) has experienced an overall rapid warming and moistening; however, the knowledge of TP climate regionalization and of its spatial-temporal variations is far behind the rapid climate change and subsequent environmental responses. To address the threats of frequent compound processes, like heatwaves or flash droughts, we analyze the interaction of atmospheric processes and climate subsystems, propose a novel data-driven climate diagnostics approach, and generate a time series of multi-scale local climate zonings, which characterize the spatial-temporal variations of TP climate and provides an in-depth understanding of TP climate change from 1979 to 2018. The interpretation of this data driven approach is supported by Holdridge’s life-zones, Budyko’s physical framework of geobotanical biomes driven by the surface fluxes of water supply (precipitation) and water demand (net radiation), and the Köppen phenomenological climate classification. Three different local climate patterns are identified: (i) The main driver of local climate change in the Qiangtang area (central-western TP) is shifting from water supply to demand dominance. (ii) In the Qaidam area (north-eastern TP), the humid region expands accompanied with a contracting arid region; this trend of warming and moistening expands from the east westwards. (iii) Hengduan Mountains area (south-eastern TP) becomes warmer and wetter but with frequent local climate variations. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Austria, part of Springer Nature 2024.
