Drivers of elevation-dependent warming over the Tibetan Plateau

The response of the warming magnitude over the Tibetan Plateau (TP; elevation ≥ 3000 m) to global climate change is not spatially uniform. Rather, it enhances with elevation, referred to as elevation-dependent warming (EDW). The degree of EDW over the TP is season-dependent, with the largest amplitude of 0.21°C km−1 observed during boreal winter. Several factors have been proposed in previous studies as possible drivers of TP EDW, but the relative importance of these factors has been less studied. To quantitatively identify the major drivers of TP EDW in winter over recent decades (1979–2018), the authors applied the radiative kernels diagnostic method with several datasets. The results robustly suggest that, the surface albedo feedback associated with changes in snow cover plays the leading role in TP EDW. Observations show that the snow cover has reduced significantly over regions with high elevation during the winters of the past four decades, leading to reductions in outgoing shortwave radiation and thus EDW.