The Thermal Effect of the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau on the Formation and Maintenance of Stationary Planetary-Scale Circulation during Summer in the Northern Hemisphere

Many computations showed that the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau is a strong heat source during summer in the northern hemisphere, and acts as a heat island in “the atmospheric ocean”. Yeh and Gao computed the sensible heat flux and latent heat flux on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, based on long-term records of surface observations[1]. Their results show that there are large upward fluxes of sensible heat in the western Plateau from May to July and significant contributions to the latent heat release in the eastern Plateau from June to August. Ashe computed the planetary-scale distribution of heat sources during summer in the northern hemisphere from the climatic data[2]. The results also show that the greatest heat source during summer in the northern hemisphere is located on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau. Very recently, Nitta, Luo and Yanai computed the distribution of heat source over the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau for the summer in 1979, respectively[3,4]. Their computed results show that the maximum mean heating rate is located in the 400–500 hPa layer over the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau.