Quantitative study on driving factors of land surface temperature trends on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau from 2003 to 2020 based on partial correlation analysis
As a key parameter of land-atmosphere interaction, land surface temperature (LST) plays an important role in the surface water-heat cycle and can accurately characterize changes in the surface thermal environment. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has the largest cryosphere except for the polar regions, which has a profound impact on the regional and global climate system and ecological economy. As the region with the most significant climate change, an in-depth understanding of the driving fac-tors of LST dynamic changes in the cryosphere of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau can provide important scientific support for an ac-curate understanding of the changing laws and driving mechanisms of the cryosphere thermal environment of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Based on the mean annual surface temperature (MAST) extracted from the annual temperature cycle model, this study used partial correlation analysis to analyze the relationship between the MASTs and cloud amount, vegetation coverage, snow cover,precipitation, and air temperature from 2003 to 2020 and revealed the main driving factors of the change of MAST in different regions of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The results show that the four driving factors of cloud amount, vegetation coverage, snow cover, and precipitation mainly have negative partial correlations during the daytime while positive partial cor-relations during the nighttime, and there are positive partial correlations for air temperature during both the daytime and night-time. For the dominant factors of MAST dynamic changes on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, there are significant differences in the dominant factors of MAST in different regions of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The MAST dynamic changes on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau during the daytime are mainly affected by cloud amount with a main negative partial correlation (the dominant change area accounts for 38.17%), and the affected area is concentrated on the northwest and the west of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The overall MAST changes on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau at nighttime are mainly dominated by air temperature with a positive partial correlation (the dominant change area exceeds 48%), reflecting that the influence of climate warming on MAST at nighttime is stronger than that during the daytime. This study can provide a scientific reference for the protection and sustain-able development of the cryosphere on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau under the background of climate change.
land surface temperatureQinghai-Tibet Plateaudriving factorspartial correlation analysiscryosphere changes