Abstracts for the 5th International GAME Conf.

3-5 October 2001

Aichi Trade Center

Nagoya Japan

Water Budget in the Melting Ground Layerin the Region of Central Tibet Plateau

Zhang Yinsheng (1), T. Ohata (1), M. Kadota (1), Toshio Koike (4), Nozomu Hirose (4)

Tibetan Plateau, which has been reported a sensitive region to global warming. The energy and water cycles over the Tibetan Plateau play an important role in the Asian Monsoon system, which in turn is a major component of both the energy and water cycles of the global climate system. Of particular importance is the melt season when snowmelt and evaporation occurring simultaneously but at different parts of the basin. Through its effects on the hydrology, permafrost occurrence increases the spatial heterogeneity of the land surface process through contrasts in wetness and in albedo. Differential heating and evaporation, together with advection, are amplified by the hydrology of permafrost terrain. The response of its land surface hydrological process to atmosphere forcing has become a conspicuous and important subject to understanding the interaction between land surface and atmosphere. Land surface processes on the Tibetan Plateau are multifold and complicated, due to the its characteristics of clearly climate seasonal (monsoon climate), ground freeze—melt—refreeze, special snow cover, low and sparse vegetation and highly complex terrain. Since several years, the observations of components of hydrological processes, including precipitation, discharge, soil wetness and ground surface meteorology conditions, have been carried out in the region of Central Tibet Plateau under the project of GAME/Tibet. And the data in the period of Aug. 1997 to Sep. 1998 had been opened. This presentation is going to show the variation daily evaporation, water storage changes and water movement in the melting layer of the permafrost.

Submittal Information

Name : Date :
    Zhang Yinsheng
    12-Jul-01-15:22:20
Organization : Theme :
    Frontier Observation Research System for Global Change
    Theme 1
Address : Presentation :
    3173-25, Showa-machi, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa 236-0001
    Poster or oral
Country : Abstract ID :
    Japan
    T1ZY12Jul01152220
Phone : Fax :
    045-778-5643
    045-778-5707
E-mail :
    yszhang@jamstec.go.jp