Evaluation of ERA5 Atmospheric Reanalysis Datasets for Surface Climatology over the Tibetan Plateau
Abstract
Atmospheric reanalysis provides a complete and consistent long-term record of climate states, and it is widely used for climate change studies, especially for regions lacking of adequate observational datasets. ECMWF's recently released atmospheric reanalysis, ERA5, provides a detailed picture of the global weather and climate back to 1979. In this study we evaluate the performance of ERA5 over the Tibetan Plateau for the period of 1979-2012 year, compares the surface air temperature (Tair) and precipitation (Prec) with a set of 77 station observations, as well as with the global high temporal and spatial resolution precipitation analysis, CMORPH. In general, the ERA5 well reproduces the temporal and spatial variations of Tair and Prec. The average biases of Tair are less than 0.3℃ after the lapse rate correction for the dry and wet seasons. The annual cycle and diurnal cycle of Prec are consistent well with the station observations and the CMORPH dataset, but the ERA5 slightly underestimates precipitation in dry season, and overestimates precipitation in wet season, with average biases of -0.2mm/d and 1.0mm/d respectively. Southern stations exhibit relatively large biases than other region stations, which might be due to the imprecise description of the complex terrain. Our evaluation suggests that ERA5 reanalysis is a valuable addition for Tibet Plateau climate change study, such as High-Mountain Asia glacier mass balance change and permafrost degradation.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFM.A13R3100C
- Keywords:
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- 3305 Climate change and variability;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES;
- 3322 Land/atmosphere interactions;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES;
- 3354 Precipitation;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES;
- 1833 Hydroclimatology;
- HYDROLOGY