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Surface heat balance and pan evaporation trends in Eastern Asia in the period 1971–2000
Author(s) -
Xu Jianqing,
Haginoya Shigenori,
Saito Kazuyuki,
Motoya Ken
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
hydrological processes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.222
H-Index - 161
eISSN - 1099-1085
pISSN - 0885-6087
DOI - 10.1002/hyp.5668
Subject(s) - plateau (mathematics) , pan evaporation , environmental science , arid , evaporation , climatology , cloud cover , relative humidity , humidity , potential evaporation , atmospheric sciences , climate change , aridity index , water balance , precipitation , period (music) , latent heat , geography , geology , meteorology , oceanography , cloud computing , mathematical analysis , paleontology , mathematics , geotechnical engineering , computer science , operating system , physics , acoustics
Climatic variations over Eastern Asia, including the Tibetan Plateau, were analysed using meteorological data for 32 points in the period 1971 to 2000. Changes in heat and water balances were examined using potential evaporation E P , and a wetness index WI , as suggested by Kondo and Xu (1997a,b). Climate zones, including the humid, semi‐humid, semi‐arid and arid climate types, in Eastern Asia identified by the wetness index matched the vegetation distribution. Average monthly temperatures increased over the 30 years, with the sharpest increase in February. In general, temperature increases were larger in the north than in the south. Air temperature increased by more than 0·05 K yr −1 in northern China. The data showed that diurnal temperature ranges have decreased in recent years. From the Tibetan Plateau, through central China, to southern northeast China, there has been an increase in potential evaporation and pan evaporation, which may be related to both higher temperatures and a lack of surface water. Increasing long‐wave radiation flux is apparent in every month and in the interannual trends. This is in contrast to the solar radiation flux. On the other hand, trends for relative humidity and cloud cover were negative, but positive for water vapour pressure. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.