Abstract
The snow cover in the Tibetan Plateau (TP) responds keenly to global climate and hydrological shifts, with snow albedo variation serving as a pivotal indicator of these changes. In this study, we explored snow albedo changes over the period (2001–2022) in the TP combined with the high-resolution near-surface meteorological forcing datasets (2001–2022). The study utilized Ding’s method to separate precipitation patterns, and then employed path analysis to evaluate the vertical response of snow albedo to air temperature, rainfall, and snowfall across four periods. The findings are as follows: (1) Snow albedo in area above 4000 m ranged from 0.4 to 0.7, while below 4000 m, snow albedo was primarily below 0.4. Snow albedo was generally higher in the northern TP. (2) During the snow accumulation period (October to December), snow albedo showed a decreasing trend in most areas of the TP. Conversely, snow albedo exhibited overall increasing trends during the snow stable period (January to February), snowmelt period (March to May), and snowless period (June to September). Especially in the central TP, snow albedo showed significant decrease during the snow accumulation period, and it increased significantly in the other periods. (3) Air temperature, rainfall, and snowfall influenced directly and predominantly snow albedo changes in the TP. Especially, air temperature and snowfall were the primary driving factors in most areas. (4) During different periods, air temperature was the main factor driving changes in snow albedo below 5000 m, but snowfall had a stronger influence above 5000 m. Except during the snow accumulation period, the impact of rainfall on snow albedo decreased with increasing altitude. During the snowless period, rainfall affected snow albedo obviously, but snowfall remained the dominant factor in areas above 6500 m. These results provide new insights on climate-driven changes in the snow albedo over the TP.
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Acknowledgments
This work was financially supported by the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China (42261026, 41971094, and 42161025), Gansu Science and Technology Research Project (22ZD6FA005), Higher Education Innovation Foundation of Education Department of Gansu Province (2022A 041), and the open foundation of Xinjiang Key Laboratory of Water Cycle and Utilization in Arid Zone (XJYS0907-2023-01).
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WU Jun: Writing-original draft, Formal analysis, Data curation. LI Xuemei and DUAN Huane: Supervision, Methodology. WANG Guigang and YANG Chuanming: Visualization. ZHANG Xu: Visualization, Software.
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Wu, J., Li, X., Duan, H. et al. Vertical response of snow albedo to seasonal climate change in the Tibetan Plateau. J. Mt. Sci. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-024-8943-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-024-8943-y