Regional Features of Vapor Transfer and Precipitation Distributed in Northwest China

This article investigates regional distribution features of rainfall and vapor transport in Northwest China during 1961-2002, achieving that: (1) Three climate zones in this vast region differ in trends of annual precipitation, with rainfall in the westerly belt (denoted as zoneWB) exhibiting an increasing trend from the 1970s, rainfall in the East Asian monsoon belt (denoted as zoneMB) displaying a decreasing trend in the study period and the Qinghai Plateau zone (denoted as zoneQP) precipitation fluctuating roughly around the mean; (2) The net vapor fluxes (NVF) in zoneWB and zoneQP show an increasing trend as opposited to zoneMB, for which the reason may lie behind that the NVF increase in zoneWB and zoneQP is attributed to pronounced decrease in deficit of westerly NVF, whereas the decrease in zoneMB NVF is ascribed to the significant drop in meridional vapor transfer; (3) ZoneWB rainfall and atmospheric vapor transport change abrupt in 1990 and 1985, respectively, without such happening in zoneMB and zoneQP; (4) ZoneWB rainfall increase occurs when atmospheric vapor budget/NVF increases, so that the latter has to occur ahead of the former; zoneMB rainfall decrease relates to the decrease in atmospheric vapor budget after the 1990s,leading to (more and even) successive droughts in the east of Northwest China on a synchronous basis except zoneQP of which the precipitation factors include river evaporation, glaciers, and snow cover in addition to atmospheric vapor.