EGU21-5776
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-5776
EGU General Assembly 2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

The South Asia Monsoon Break Promotes Grass Growth on the Tibetan Plateau

Yanghang Ren1,4, Kun Yang2,3, and Han Wang2
Yanghang Ren et al.
  • 1National Tibetan Plateau Data Center, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
  • 2Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing , China
  • 3Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
  • 4University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing , China

As region that is highly sensitive to global climate change, the Tibetan Plateau (TP) experiences an intra-seasonal soil water deficient due to the reduced precipitation during the South Asia monsoon (SAM) break. Few studies have investigated the impact of the SAM break on TP ecological processes, although a number of studies have explored the effects of inter-annual and decadal climate variability. In this study, the response of vegetation activity to the SAM break was investigated. The data used are: (1) soil moisture from in situ, satellite remote sensing and data assimilation; and (2) the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Solar-Induced chlorophyll Fluorescence (SIF). We found that in the region impacted by SAM break, which is distributed in the central-eastern part of TP, photosynthesis become more active during the SAM break. And temporal variability in the photosynthesis of this region is controlled mainly by solar radiation variability and has little sensitivity to soil moisture. We adopted a diagnostic process-based modeling approach to examine the causes of enhanced plant activity during the SAM break on the central-eastern TP. Our analysis indicates that active photosynthetic behavior in the reduced precipitation is stimulated by increases in solar radiation absorbed and temperature. This study highlights the importance of sub-seasonal climate variability for characterizing the relationship between vegetation and climate.

How to cite: Ren, Y., Yang, K., and Wang, H.: The South Asia Monsoon Break Promotes Grass Growth on the Tibetan Plateau, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-5776, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-5776, 2021.

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