Westerly-triggered lake-effect snowfall enhanced with climate warming over the Tibetan Plateau

Yufeng Dai; Tao Wang; Yongwei Sheng; Lei Wang; Hongbin Chen; Xiaowen Zhang; Xiangyu Li; Weicai Wang; Junfei Wu; Wenfeng Chen; Tandong Yao

doi:10.1016/j.scib.2024.01.042

Westerly-triggered lake-effect snowfall enhanced with climate warming over the Tibetan Plateau

Sci Bull (Beijing). 2024 Apr 15;69(7):968-977. doi: 10.1016/j.scib.2024.01.042. Epub 2024 Feb 2.

Authors

Yufeng Dai¹, Tao Wang², Yongwei Sheng³, Lei Wang², Hongbin Chen⁴, Xiaowen Zhang⁵, Xiangyu Li⁶, Weicai Wang², Junfei Wu⁷, Wenfeng Chen², Tandong Yao²

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Tibetan Plateau Earth System, Environment and Resources (TPESER), Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China. Electronic address: yufengdai@itpcas.ac.cn.
² State Key Laboratory of Tibetan Plateau Earth System, Environment and Resources (TPESER), Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
³ Department of Geography, University of California, Los Angeles CA 90095, USA.
⁴ College of Information Science and Engineering, Huaqiao University, Xiamen 361021, China.
⁵ Department of Resource Management, Tangshan Normal University, Tangshan 063000, China.
⁶ Department of Atmospheric Science, School of Environmental Studies, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China.
⁷ Center for Pan-third Pole Environment, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China.

PMID: 38331705
DOI: 10.1016/j.scib.2024.01.042

Abstract

Lake-effect snowfall (LES) occurs when cold air moves across open lakes. LES is expected to occur more frequently over the TP, due to the intensified lake expansion caused by intensified global warming. Thus, there is an urgent need to comprehensively assess the LES over the TP. Here, we revealed that the LES is triggered by westerly southward shift leading to the drop in air temperature and is positively correlated with lake area, wind speed and longitude across 12 large lakes (>300 km²) based on satellite observations and reanalysis data. Using a sensitivity model simulation, we determined that large lakes in the southern TP contributed to more than 50% of the snowfall in the downwind area in 2013. Projections indicate that the westerly-triggered LES will increase under the future RCP4.5 climate warming scenario, highlighting the importance of developing adaptive policies to address the growing risks associated with future LES.

Keywords: Climate warming; Lake-effect snowfall; Tibetan Plateau; Westerly.