Preprints
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-863
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-863
17 Mar 2025
 | 17 Mar 2025
Status: this preprint is open for discussion and under review for The Cryosphere (TC).

Brief communication: Sharp winter precipitation transition on the southern edge of the Tibetan Plateau

Titouan Biget, Fanny Brun, Walter Immerzeel, Leo Martin, Hamish Pritchard, Emily Colier, Yanbin Lei, and Tandong Yao

Abstract. The Tibetan Plateau is a high-altitude arid region, where limited in-situ precipitation measurements are available. In this communication, we document a strong precipitation gradient at the southern edge of the Paiku Co catchment (southern Tibetan Plateau) from in-situ data and atmospheric model outputs. In particular, we use water pressure time series from proglacial lakes, two automatic weather stations, and data from ERA5-Land reanalysis and CORDEX-FPS-CPTP ensemble. We show that precipitation can vary by one order of magnitude over a short distance of 10 km in a rather smooth terrain throughout the winter and the pre-monsoon season. This large precipitation gradients marks the transition between the great Himalayas ans the Tibetan Plateau.

Competing interests: Emily Collier is a member of The Cryosphere editorial board.

Publisher's note: Copernicus Publications remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims made in the text, published maps, institutional affiliations, or any other geographical representation in this preprint. The responsibility to include appropriate place names lies with the authors.
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Titouan Biget, Fanny Brun, Walter Immerzeel, Leo Martin, Hamish Pritchard, Emily Colier, Yanbin Lei, and Tandong Yao

Status: open (until 29 May 2025)

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  • RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-863', Anonymous Referee #1, 08 Apr 2025 reply
Titouan Biget, Fanny Brun, Walter Immerzeel, Leo Martin, Hamish Pritchard, Emily Colier, Yanbin Lei, and Tandong Yao

Data sets

Water pressure time series from Golojang Co Yanbin Lei, Fanny Brun, Tandong Yao, Walter Immerzeel, and Titouan Biget https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14894696

Model code and software

Precipitation-computation-using-pressure-series-from-Tibetan-lake Titouan Biget https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14894770

Titouan Biget, Fanny Brun, Walter Immerzeel, Leo Martin, Hamish Pritchard, Emily Colier, Yanbin Lei, and Tandong Yao

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Short summary
This study explore the precipitation in the southern Tibetan plateau using the water pressure of an high altitude lake and meteorological models and shows that snowfall could be much stronger on the Plateau than what is predicted by the models.
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