Recent Climate Changes in Hailuogou Watershed on the Eastern Slope of Mount Gongga, South-Eastern Fringe of the Tibetan Plateau, China

Abstract

Mountainous regions are particularly sensitive to climate change. Seasonal and annual variations in climate already strongly influence the ecosystems in such areas. Temporal and spatial variations of temperature and precipitation, for higher elevation site (Hailuogou Station) and lower elevation site (Moxi Station) within Hailuogou watershed which is located on the eastern slope of Mount Gongga, China, were analyzed to evaluate the extent and trend of climate change. Climate data were carefully checked and corrected for errors before being analyzed. The results of this work indicate that the measured climate data contain a wide magnitude of variations in temperature and precipitation in the mountainous region. The annual, minimal and maximal temperatures exhibit some increasing trends during the studied period. The results of this work show that slightly warming climate is mostly caused by increasing minimum temperature. Maximal precipitation mostly occurs in July and minimal precipitation mostly occurs in December. There exists a slightly declining trend of precipitation during 1988-2009. Precipitation exhibits an increasing trend with altitude, whereas the temperature has the reverse trend in the alpine area during studied period.