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Trends and uncertainties in surface air temperature over the Tibetan Plateau, 1951–2013

  • Special Collection on Climate System Research in China
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Abstract

Trends and uncertainties of surface air temperature over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) are evaluated by using observations at 100 meteorological stations during the period 1951–2013. The sampling error variances of gridded monthly data are estimated for every month and every grid box of data. The gridded data and their sampling error variances are used to calculate TP averages, their trends, and associated uncertainties. It is shown that large sampling error variances dominate northern and western TP, while small variances appear over southern and eastern TP. Every month from January to December has a positive linear trend during the study period. February has the largest trend of 0.34 ± 0.18°C (10 yr)–1, and April the smallest at 0.15 ± 0.11°C (10 yr)–1. The uncertainties decrease steadily with time, implying that they are not large enough to alter the TP warming trend.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the reviewers for their constructive suggestions and comments, which have helped improve the paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Atmospheric Sciences/Plateau Atmosphere and Environment Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province/Joint Laboratory of Climate and Environment Change, Chengdu University of Information Technology, Chengdu, 610225, China

    Wei Hua, Guangzhou Fan, Yiwei Zhang, Lihua Zhu, **aohang Wen, Yongli Zhang, **n Lai, Binyun Wang, Mingjun Zhang, Yao Hu & Qiuyue Wu

  2. Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Nan**g University of Information Science & Technology, Nan**g, 210044, China

    Guangzhou Fan

Authors
  1. Wei Hua
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  2. Guangzhou Fan
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  3. Yiwei Zhang
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  4. Lihua Zhu
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  5. **aohang Wen
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  6. Yongli Zhang
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  9. Mingjun Zhang
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  10. Yao Hu
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  11. Qiuyue Wu
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Correspondence to Wei Hua.

Additional information

Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41405069, 91537214, 41275079, 41305077, 41605063, and 41505078), Key Foundation of the Education Department of Sichuan Province (16ZA0203), China Meteorological Administration Special Public Welfare Research Fund (GYHY201506001), and Scientific Research Fund of Chengdu University of Information Technology (KYTZ201517, J201516, and J201518).

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Hua, W., Fan, G., Zhang, Y. et al. Trends and uncertainties in surface air temperature over the Tibetan Plateau, 1951–2013. J Meteorol Res 31, 420–430 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13351-017-6013-x

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