Weiqiang Ma

Chinese Academy of Sciences | CAS · Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research

Surface albedo is a critical indicator of Earth’s ability to reflect solar radiation, influencing energy balance and climate dynamics. Research on blue-sky albedo on the Tibetan Plateau has often focused on clear-sky conditions, overlooking seasonal snow cover and variable weather. This paper uses convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to estimate bl...

Wind speed spectra analysis is of great importance for understanding boundary layer turbulence characteristics, atmospheric numerical model development, and wind energy assessment. 15-year time series of near-surface horizontal wind data from the national Observation and Research Station for Qomolongma Special Atmospheric Processes and Environmenta...

The climate of the Tibetan Plateau (TP) has experienced substantial changes in recent decades as a result of the location's susceptibility to global climate change. The changes observed across the TP are closely associated with regional land–atmosphere interactions. Current models and satellites struggle to accurately depict the interactions; there...

Ground-based microwave radiometers (MWRs) operating in the K- and V-bands (20–60 GHz) can help us obtain temperature and humidity profiles in the troposphere. Aside from some soundings from local meteorological observatories, the tropospheric atmosphere over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) has never been continuously observed. As part of the Chinese Secon...

Previous studies have emphasized the significant influence of the atmospheric heat source of the Tibetan Plateau (TPHS) on the weather and climate in East Asia, but the causes and mechanisms of the TPHS variations remain unclear. In this study, the physical linkage between the winter northern Eurasian snow depth and early summer (May and June) TPHS...

Evapotranspiration (ET) plays a crucial role in the water balance of the Tibetan Plateau (TP), often referred to as the “Asian water tower” region. However, accurately monitoring and comprehending the spatial and temporal variations of ET components (including soil evaporation Es, canopy transpiration Ec, and intercepted water evaporation Ew) in th...

Climate over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) has undergone substantial changes in recent decades due to its sensitive to global climate change. Regional land-atmosphere interactions are closely linked to the changes that have emerged across the TP. The TP is recognized as an ideal natural laboratory for monitoring ongoing climate changes and examining the...

With the continuous improvement of urbanization levels in the Lhasa area, the urban heat island effect (UHI) has seriously affected the ecological environment of the region. However, the satellite-based thermal infrared land surface temperature (LST), commonly used for UHI research, is affected by cloudy weather, resulting in a lack of continuous s...

The accurate determination of aerosol optical depth (AOD) is of great importance for climate change research and environmental monitoring. To understand the applicability of the MODIS aerosol product inversion algorithm in Gansu Province, this work uses ground-based solar photometer AOD observation data to validate the MODIS C6 version of the AOD p...

Lake stratification and mixing processes can influence gas and energy transport in the water column and water–atmosphere interactions, thus impacting limnology and local climate. Featuring the largest high-elevation inland lake zone in the world, comprehensive and comparative studies on the evolution of lake stratification and mixing and their driv...

Known as the “Asian Water Tower”, the Tibetan Plateau (TP) is a rich water resource and serves an important ecological function. Climate change may cause changes to the water cycle, and these changes may affect the alpine vegetation growth. However, the variation characteristics of groundwater storage (GWS) and its driving factors and associated ec...

The Asian Precipitation Experiment (AsiaPEX) was initiated in 2019 to understand terrestrial precipitation over diverse hydroclimatological conditions for improved predictions, disaster reduction, and sustainable development across Asia under the framework of the Global Hydroclimatology Panel (GHP)/Global Energy and Water Exchanges (GEWEX). AsiaPEX...

The Tibetan Plateau (TP) features unique and highly heterogeneous soils, terrains, vegetation, and climate. Accurately modeling complex freeze‐thaw processes and their hydrothermal impacts remains a great challenge. This study focused on deciphering the spatiotemporal variability of diverse parameterization schemes in the soil hydrothermal simulati...

“Earth summit mission 2022” is one of the landmark scientific research activities of the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research (STEP). This scientific expedition firstly used advanced technology and methods to detect vertical meteorological elements and produce forecasts for mountain climbing. The “Earth summit mission 2022” Qom...

Blowing snow has a major impact on the spatial–temporal evolution of snow cover. An accurate prediction of the initiation of snow particle movement is one of the prerequisites for blowing snow modeling. Previous studies have proposed varied complexity parameterizations to estimate the occurrence of blowing snow. However, a quantitative evaluation o...

Containing elevated topography, the Tibetan Plateau (TP) has significant thermodynamic effects for regional environment and climate change, where understanding energy and water exchange processes (EWEP) is an important prerequisite. However, estimation of the exact spatiotemporal variability of the land-atmosphere energy and water exchange over het...

Mt. Everest (Qomolangma), the highest mountain on Earth, is an unrivalled natural research platform for understanding multispheric interactions over heterogeneous landscapes. The land-atmosphere interactions in this iconic mountain region have paramount importance for weather and climate predictions at both regional and global scales; however, obse...

The unique characteristics of land–air coupling and troposphere–stratosphere interaction over the Tibetan Plateau (TP), the highest landform in the world, play a vital role in weather and climate on regional and global scales. Although a great deal of research has been carried out, large gaps remain in our understanding of TP land–air coupling and...

Wind-driven snow transport has important implications for spatial-temporal heterogeneity of snow distribution and snowpack evolution in mountainous areas, such as the French Alps. Due to the paucity of near-surface observations, our knowledge on the spatiotemporal variability of blowing snow occurrences is rather limited. Based on multi-year in-sit...

Changes in lake water volume can reflect variations in regional hydrometeorology and are a sensitive indicator of regional environmental change. The Tibetan Plateau, referred to as the “Asian Water Tower”, has a large number of lakes. These lakes are in a natural state and are relatively unaffected by human activities. Understanding the changes to...

The lake surface water temperature (LSWT) on Tibetan Plateau (TP) is sensitive to climate change. Based on a 1‐D lake model, we have investigated the interdecadal variation and long‐term trend of LSWT in Lake Nam Co (LNC) on TP during 1980–2018 and quantified the relative contributions of atmospheric factors to the LSWT trend. Results show LNC was...

Evapotranspiration (ET) is an important component of the water balance system in the “Asian water tower” region, the Tibetan Plateau (TP). However, accurately monitoring and understanding the spatial and temporal variability of the ET components (soil evaporation Es, canopy transpiration Ec, and intercepted water evaporation Ew) on the TP remains g...

During the boreal spring (March–May), the precipitation that occurs from March over the southeastern Tibetan Plateau (TP) can account for 20–40% of the total annual amount. The origin of this phenomenon has not been clearly understood from a climatological perspective. In this study, the role of topographical and thermal forcing on the precipitatio...

Thousands of lakes and complex topography on Tibetan Plateau (TP) have important impacts on the local weather and climate, especially extreme weather events. In this study, the Weather Research and Forecasting model was adopted to quantify the impacts of Lake Nam Co (LNC) and surrounding topography on the extreme snowfall event over Nam Co basin on...

Changes in the water cycle on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) have a significant impact on local agricultural production and livelihoods and its downstream regions. Against the background of widely reported warming and wetting, the hydrological cycle has accelerated and the likelihood of extreme weather events and natural disasters occurring (i.e., snowst...

Snowfall and the subsequent evolution of the snowpack have a large effect on the surface energy balance and water cycle of the Tibetan Plateau (TP). The effects of snow cover can be represented by the WRF coupled with a land surface scheme. The widely used Noah scheme is computationally efficient, but its poor representation of albedo needs conside...

The current study investigates the interannual variation of the Tibetan Plateau summer monsoon (TPSM) and its response to atmospheric teleconnection patterns over Eurasia is examined in the present study. The interannual variation of TPSM is characterized by anomalous low pressure and cyclonic convergence over the lower atmosphere of the Tibetan Pl...

Lake water temperature and the related thermal structure influence not only the provision of ecosystem services in lacustrine environments but also the interactions with regional climate. However, continuous lake temperature monitoring across the Tibetan Plateau is sparse, limiting our understanding of lake thermal and mixing dynamics and hindering...

Accurate long-term precipitation information is critical for understanding the mechanisms behind how precipitation couples with Earth’s water fluxes, energy balances, and biogeochemical cycles across space–time scales under the changing climate. This study proposes a novel approach (Daily Total Volume Controlled Merging and Disaggregation Algorithm...

Based on empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis, the dominant modes of variations in summer surface sensible heating (SH) over the Tibetan Plateau (TP), as well as the associated atmospheric circulation anomalies, were investigated in this study. The results show that the first dominant mode of summer SH presents a feature of decadal reductio...

An influence of precipitation on the glacier changes over the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) is investigated in this paper. The results show that the glacial loss rates of glaciers in the QTP are significantly correlated with the interannual changes of precipitation and low cloud cover. The water vapor, importing with the warm and wet airflows from th...

Urban expansion and climate change can considerably influence the regional thermal environment. In this study, the effects of changes in land cover type and vegetation coverage (referred to as LU for short), gridded anthropogenic heat (AH) emission and future climate change on atmospheric thermal environment in a Chinese megacity, Hefei, are invest...

Analysis of long-term, ground-based observation data on the Tibetan Plateau help to enhance our understanding of land-atmosphere interactions and their influence on weather and climate in this region. In this paper, the daily, monthly, and annual averages of radiative fluxes, surface albedo, surface temperature, and air temperature were calculated...

Based on historical observations daily data for 1981–2016 from 130 meteorological stations over and around the Tibetan Plateau (TP), the trends of sensible heat flux (SH) and their elevation dependence were investigated. Results indicate that the SH over and around the TP experienced apparent trends’ shift in approximately 2000, demonstrating notic...

The Indian Ocean and East Asia are the most famous monsoonal regions, and the climate of East Asia is affected by the change in wind direction due to monsoons. The vertical motion of the atmosphere is closely related to the amount of precipitation in whichever particular region. Climate diagnosis and statistical analysis were used to study the vert...

A better understanding of the water and energy cycles at climate scale in the Third Pole Environment is essential for assessing and understanding the causes of changes in the cryosphere and hydrosphere in relation to changes of plateau atmosphere in the Asian monsoon system and for predicting the possible changes in water resources in South and Eas...

Snow albedo is important to the land surface energy balance and to the water cycle. During snowfall and subsequent snowmelt, snow albedo is usually parameterized as functions of snow-related variables in land surface models. However, the default snow albedo scheme in the widely used Noah land surface model shows evident shortcomings in land–atmosph...

Wind-driven snow transport has important implications for the spatial-temporal heterogeneity of snow distribution and snowpack evolution in mountainous areas, such as the European Alps. The climatological and hydrological significance of this region have been extensively investigated using satellite and numerical models. However, knowledge of the s...

Significance Cold regions contain vast stores of permafrost carbon. Rapid warming will cause permafrost to thaw and plant respiration to accelerate, with a resultant loss of CO 2 , but could also increase the fixation of CO 2 by plants. A network of 32 eddy covariance sites on the Tibetan Plateau, which has the largest store of alpine permafrost ca...

Actual terrestrial evapotranspiration (ETa) is a key parameter controlling land–atmosphere interaction processes and water cycle. However, spatial distribution and temporal changes in ETa over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) remain very uncertain. Here we estimate the multiyear (2001–2018) monthly ETa and its spatial distribution on the TP by a combinatio...

Monitoring paddy rice cultivation is essential for ensuring food security and for land resource management in agrarian countries of South Asia. In this study, we investigated the spatial and temporal variation of rice cultivated area and phenological metrics in Nepal between 2003 and 2018 using the time series MODIS data and PhenoRice algorithm. Co...

Blowing snow processes are crucial in shaping the strongly heterogeneous spatiotemporal distribution of snow and in regulating subsequent snowpack evolution in mountainous terrain. Although empirical formulae and constant threshold wind speeds have been widely used to estimate the occurrence of blowing snow in regions with sparse observations, the...

Based on bias-corrected future projections from the Providing REgional Climates for Impacts Studies (PRECIS) regional climate model under both RCP4.5 and 8.5 scenarios over China, extreme climatic events at the middle and end of the twenty-first century are investigated in this paper. The model performance of PRECIS is validated using comparisons w...

Snow albedo is important to the land surface energy balance and to the water cycle. During snowfall and subsequent snowmelt, snow albedo is usually parameterized as functions of snow related variables in land surface models. However, the default snow albedo scheme in the widely used Noah land surface model shows evident shortcomings in land-atmosph...

The vertical motion of air is closely related to the amount of precipitation that falls in a particular region. The Tibetan Plateau and the North Pacific are important determinants of the East Asian climate. We use climate diagnosis and statistical analysis to study the vertical motion of the air over the North Pacific and Tibetan Plateau and the r...

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between the boreal summer Silk Road Pattern (SRP) and the atmospheric heat ( ) over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) region, using 5 reanalysis datasets over the period 1979–2019. Our results indicate an interdecadal change of boreal summer SRP over the Eurasian region, with a regime shift in the spatial str...

The Tibetan Plateau (TP) is characterized by complex topography and heterogeneous surface cover, which makes it difficult to obtain accurate precipitation data at a regional scale. Therefore, it is important to use dense ground observations to evaluate satellite‐derived precipitation products. In this study, the top‐down‐based Global Precipitation...

The Heihe River Basin (HRB), located on the northeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau, is the second-largest inland river basin in China, with an area of 140,000 km2. The HRB is a coupling area of the westerlies, the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau monsoon and the Southeast monsoon circulation system, and is a relatively independent land-surface water-circula...

Blowing snow processes are crucial in shaping the strongly heterogeneous spatiotemporal distribution of snow, and in regulating subsequent snowpack evolution in mountainous terrain. Although empirical formulae and a constant threshold wind speed have been widely used to estimate the occurrence of blowing snow in regions with sparse observations, th...

The Indus Basin is referred to as a “water tower” which ensures water storage and supply to sustain environmental and human needs downstream by a balanced combination of precipitation, snow, glaciers, and surface water. The Upper Indus Basin (UIB) combines the high mountain ranges of the Hindukush, Karakoram, and Himalaya (HKH); this unique region...

The northern slopes of Himalaya (NSH) have the highest average elevation in the world. It is difficult to assess how climate change has affected this region because only a few observations are available from the high terrain and harsh environment. This study investigates the long-term characteristics of temperature and precipitation in the NSH. Fur...

Terrestrial actual evapotranspiration (ETa) is a key parameter controlling the land-atmosphere interaction processes and the water cycle. However, the spatial distribution and temporal changes of ETa over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) remain very uncertain. Here we estimate the multiyear (2001–2018) monthly ETa and its spatial distribution on the TP by...

Snowstorms frequently occur in spring over the heterogeneous underlying surface of the Tibetan Plateau, causing both economic and societal damage. What the intensity of factors triggering snowstorms remains poorly understood. This study quantitatively diagnoses water vapor, the thermodynamic and dynamic conditions of a large-scale heavy snowfall ev...

Net radiation is an important factor in studies of land–atmosphere processes, water resource management, and global climate change. This is particularly true for the Upper Blue Nile (UBN) basin, where significant parts of the basin are dry and evapotranspiration ( ET ) is a major mechanism for water loss. However, net radiation has not yet been app...