Tibetannet

BEIJING. Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese institute has launched a dataset for hourly observations of integrated land-atmosphere interaction on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is the largest high-elevation part of the cryosphere outside the polar regions, with vast areas of mountain glaciers, permafrost and seasonally frozen ground, which are sensitive to global climate change.

The plateau plays a critical role in influencing regional and global climate, via both thermal and dynamical mechanisms, according to a recent research article published in the journal Earth System Science Data.

Researchers from the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) said they hope to quantify atmospheric conditions and local land-atmosphere interactions over the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, as well as its effects on surrounding regions.

The researchers recorded multilayer soil temperature and moisture to capture vertical hydrothermal variations and the soil freeze-thaw process, and captured the high-frequency vertical exchanges of energy, momentum, water vapor and carbon dioxide within the atmospheric boundary layer.

The research presented a long-term (2005-2016) in situ observational dataset of hourly land-atmosphere interaction observations from an integrated high-elevation and cold-region observation network, composed of six field stations on the plateau.

The dataset can be widely used in the analysis of meteorological features on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, remote sensing product evaluation and the development of remote sensing algorithms, as well as climate research and forecasting, said Ma Yaoming, a researcher with the CAS.