A preliminary global survey of high elevation mountain stations and remarks on recent climatic changes at high altitudes in Asia

Transcription

1 A preliminary global survey of high elevation mountain stations and remarks on recent climatic changes at high altitudes in Asia What is a mountain station? Global HE station distribution PET as an estimator of evaporative conditions remarks on HE climate change in Asia The climatlas Project

2 Global HE station distribution Introductory remarks + Climate data from mountain regions are required in all scientific areas + HE stations provide data from atmospheric regions otherwise only accessible by sounding balloons - Data are often not published or are not easily accessible - Basic climatic information is available for temperature and precipitation but is scant for evaporation or water balance - A large proportion of HE stations have been operated only for a short time - No consistent global data base available, particularly no data about long-term trends - International programs collecting HE climate data (e.g. GLORIA, SHARE) appear to be little coordinated Climate data are taken by very different institutions: meteorology / hydrology / botany / forest or agricultural services but also: astronomy / aeronomy

3 MOUNTAIN STATION CHARACTERISTICS Elevation alone is not a suitable criterion Mt. Washington 1941 m Brocken 1142 m

4 MOUNTAIN STATION CHARACTERISTICS exposure is as important as elevation Dörrbecker 2007 UfS 2007 UfS 2007

5 MOUNTAIN STATION CHARACTERISTICS Considerations for a global mountain station network elevation exposure integration in local / regional station networks equipment global distribution

6 Integration in local / regional station networks Everest South Col 7990m Kalar Pattar 5545m P Pyramid id m Dughla 4600m Ph i h 4258m Pheriche 4258 Namche 3560m Lukla 2660m

7 Equipment observatories HEO automatic weather stations AWS sensors S ZAMG 2003 Lazar 2005

8 Astronomical observatories Mauna Kea 4205 m Pic du Midi 3845 m ZAMG 2003

9 A PRELIMINARY GLOBAL MOUNTAIN STATION OVERVIEW

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14 Burford et al. 1998

15 MOUNTAIN STATION CHARACTERISTICS HE stations elevation distribution 9000 m alt HEO AWS AO S number of stations

16 Climatic Change: ET and the water cycle in mountains Burford et al. 1998

17 Temperature based ET rates are unreliable! Grieser and Thomas, in prep.. Penman-Monteith PET is the only physically sound evapotranspiration estimator

18 July climate trends at Tujuksu station

19 Wind radiation influence on ET Grieser and Thomas, in prep.

20 Climate trends in Eastern Tibet Chen et al. Clim. Change 2006

21 The climatlas project A tool for: data a exploration o data presentation communication education and ist is NOT another data base

22 The ideas behind climatlas unrestricted access over the Internet data sources: FAOCLIM2 publications data contributed by researchers and organisations Internet in principle all kind of climate data can be integrated (e.g. incomplete / short duration) incorporation of small scale stations networks of research programs presentation of data as graphs (climate diagrams, trends) integration of evapotranspiration/sublimation data link to contributing researcher / institute

23 climatlas

24 climatlas How can you contribute? provide information on HE stations (metadata) meteorological measurements (long-term means or time series) data to estimate evapotranspiration/sublimation (temperature, solar radiation, humidity and wind speed) give your ideas and criticism

25 Thank you for your attention! i Institute of Geography Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz Germany