Based on the monthly temperature and rainfall data of 1961-2006, aridity is calculated and its multi-time scales characteristics in different divisions in the northern slope of Tianshan Mountains have been analyzed using Mexican Hat wavelet analysis in this article. The periodic oscillation of aridity variation and the points of abrupt change at different time scales along the time series are discovered. Also the trend of climate change is tested. Additionally, possible association of climate variation in this area with ENSO is explored using SOI date series. The research results indicate that there exist obvious regional characteristics of wet-dry climate variation in the northern slope of Tianshan Mountains. Wavelet analysis shows that there mainly exits two modes of scales (12-24 years and 4-8 years) in every division, while catastrophe point differs in different zones. To predict on the scale of 12-24 years, it will be relatively dry in mountain division and desert area in a period after 2006. In addition, the transition from warm-dry to warm-wet appears in oasis area. Correlation analysis indicted that aridity variation of the northern slope of Tianshan Mountains is affected by ENSO, while influence degree is different between areas; furthermore, this influence is one-year lagging behind ENSO in the whole area.

Date Published: 3 November 2008
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 7145, Geoinformatics 2008 and Joint Conference on GIS and Built Environment: Monitoring and Assessment of Natural Resources and Environments, 714523 (3 November 2008);

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7145:
Geoinformatics 2008 and Joint Conference on GIS and Built Environment: Monitoring and Assessment of Natural Resources and Environments
Lin Liu; Xia Li; Kai Liu; Xinchang Zhang; Yong Lao, Editor(s)