Brief communication: Sharp precipitation gradient on the southern edge of the Tibetan Plateau during cold season

Biget, Titouan; Brun, Fanny ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6607-0667; Immerzeel, Walter ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2010-9543; Martin, Léo; Pritchard, Hamish ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2936-1734; Collier, Emily ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7314-3000; Lei, Yanbin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0792-2572; Yao, Tandong. 2025 Brief communication: Sharp precipitation gradient on the southern edge of the Tibetan Plateau during cold season. The Cryosphere, 19 (11). 5863-5870. 10.5194/tc-19-5863-2025

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Abstract/Summary

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 totals can vary by one order of magnitude over a short distance of 10 km in a rather smooth terrain during the cold season. This large precipitation gradient marks the transition between the great Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.5194/tc-19-5863-2025
ISSN:	1994-0424
Date made live:	27 Nov 2025 09:55 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/540648

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