Understanding the energy balance on the Tibetan Plateau is important for better prediction of global climate change. To characterize the energy balance on the Plateau, we examined the radiation balance and the response of albedo to environmental factors above an alpine meadow and an alpine wetland surfaces in the eastern Tibetan Plateau, using 2014 data. Although our two sites belong to the same climatic background, and are close geographically, the annual incident solar radiation at the alpine meadow site(6,447 MJ/(m2·a)) was about 1.1 times that at the alpine wetland site(6,012 MJ/(m2·a)),due to differences in the cloudiness between our two sites. The alpine meadow and the alpine wetland emitted about 38%and 42%, respectively, of annual incident solar radiation back into atmosphere in the form of net longwave radiation; and they reflected about 22% and 18%, respectively, of the annual incident solar radiation back into atmosphere in the form of shortwave radiation. The annual net radiation was 2,648 and 2,544 MJ/(m2·a) for the alpine meadow site and the alpine wetland site, respectively, accounting for only about 40% of the annual incident solar radiation, significantly lower than the global mean. At 30-min scales, surface albedo exponentially decreases with the increase of the solar elevation angle; and it linearly decreases with the increase of soil-water content for our two sites. But those relationships are significantly influenced by cloudiness and are site-specific.
Based on the Monin-Obulchov similarity theory, a scheme was developed to calculate surface roughness length. Surface roughness length over the eastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau during the winter season was then estimated using the scheme and eddy covariance measurement data. Comparisons of estimated and measured wind speeds show that the scheme is feasible to calculate surface roughness length. The estimated roughness lengths at the measurement site during unfrozen, frozen and melted periods are 3.23x10(-3), 2.27x10(-3) and 1.92x10(-3) m, respectively. Surface roughness length demonstrates a deceasing trend with time during the winter season. Thereby, setting the roughness length to be a constant value in numerical models could lead to certain degree of simulation errors. The variation of surface roughness length may be caused by the change in land surface characteristic.
In order to further understand the land surface processes over the northern Tibetan Plateau, this study produced an off-line simulated examination at the Bujiao site on the northern Tibetan Plateau from June 2002 to April 2004, using the Noah Land Surface Model （Noah LSM） and observed data from the CAMP/Tibet experiment. The observed data were neces- sarily corrected and the number of soil layers in the Noah LSM was changed from 4 to 10 to enable this off-line simulation and analysis. The main conclusions are as follows： the Noah LSM performed well on the northern Tibetan Plateau. The simulated net radiation, upward longwave radiation, and upward shortwave radiation demonstrated the same remarkable annual and seasonal variation as the observed data, especially the upward longwave radiation. The simulated soil temperatures were acceptably close to the observed temperatures, especially in the shallow soil layers. The simulated freezing and melting processes were shown to start from the surface soil layer and spread down to the deep soil layers, but they took longer than the observed processes. However, Noah LSM did not adequately simulate the soil moisture. Therefore, additional high-quality, long-term observations of land surface-atmosphere processes over the Tibetan Plateau will be a key factor in proper adiustments of the model parameters in the future.
MinHong SongYaoMing MaYu ZhangWeiQiang MaSiQiong Luo
The seasonal variability in the surface energy exchange of an alpine grassland on the eastern Qinghai- Tibetan Plateau was investigated using eddy covariance measurements. Based on the change of air temperature and the seasonal distribution of precipitation, a winter season and wet season were identified, which were separated by transitional periods. The annual mean net radiation （Rn） was about 39 % of the annual mean solar radiation （Rs）. Rn was relatively low during the winter season （21% of Rs） compared with the wet season （54 % of Rs）, which can be explained by the difference in surface albedo and moisture condition between the two seasons. Annually, the main consumer of net radiation was latent heat flux （LE）. During the winter season, sensible heat flux （H） was dominant because of the frozen soil condition and lack of precipita- tion. During the wet season, LE expended 66 % of Rn due to relatively high temperature and sufficient rainfall cou- pled with vegetation growth. Leaf area index （LAI） had important influence on energy partitioning during wet season. The high LAI due to high soil water content （θv） contributed to high surface conductance （go） and LE, and thus low Bowen ratio （β）. LE was strongly controlled by Rn from June to August when gc and θv were high. During the transitional periods, H and LE were nearly equally parti- tioned in the energy balance. The results also suggested that the freeze-thaw condition of soil and the seasonal distribution of precipitation had important impacts on the energy exchange in this alpine grassland.
