Precipitation extremes observed over and around the Taklimakan Desert, China

Moyan Li; Junqiang Yao

doi:10.7717/peerj.15256

Precipitation extremes observed over and around the Taklimakan Desert, China

PeerJ. 2023 May 10:11:e15256. doi: 10.7717/peerj.15256. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Moyan Li¹, Junqiang Yao^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ College of Geography and Tourism, Xinjiang Normal University, Urumqi, Xinjiang, China.
² Institute of Desert Meteorology, China Meteorological Administration, Urumqi, Xinjiang, China.
³ National Observation and Research Station of Desert Meteorology, Taklimakan Desert of Xinjiang, Xinjiang Key Laboratory of Desert Meteorology and Sandstorm, Urumqi, China.

Abstract

The Taklimakan Desert (TD) is the largest desert in China located in the Tarim Basin (TB) in China's arid region. This study is a review of the change in precipitation and its extremes since 1961 and the high-impact extreme precipitation events in 2012-2021, particularly in 2021, with a focus on the TD along with the surrounding oases and mountainous regions.The TB has experienced significantly warmer and wetter trends since 1961, and extreme rainfall has increased significantly in the TD and its surrounding areas during the 2000s. In the TB, the year 2021 was identified as the 4th warmest for 1961-2021, and was remembered for unprecedented extreme events. Three high-impact extreme events that occurred in 2021 are highlighted, including extreme heavy rainfall over Hetian in mid-June. The earliest extreme rainfall event occurred over North Bazhou in early spring, and the strongest heavy snowfall over Baicheng in April. In addition, we also discussed the underlying physical mechanisms of extreme events over the TB and proposed novel perspectives and unresolved questions on the sciences of heavy rainfall in arid regions. Our results provide a reference for the physical mechanism, attribution, and high-resolution modeling of extreme events.

Keywords: Arid region; Climate change; High-impact; Precipitation extremes; Taklimakan desert.

Publication types

Review
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

China
Desert Climate
Ecosystem*
Rain*
Seasons

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Xinjiang (2022D01D86), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 42171038). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.