Spatiotemporal Distribution of Precipitation over the Mongolian Plateau during 1976–2017

Located in the interior of Eurasia, the Mongolian Plateau (MP) is extremely sensitive to global warming and become a critical area for studying precipitation patterns. Based on the monthly data of 135 meteorological stations during 1976–2017, we analyze the spatiotemporal change in precipitation and discuss its response to atmospheric circulation. The results show that: (1) Precipitation shows increasing trends in spring, autumn, and winter, but a decreasing trend at a rate of 5.3 mm/decade in summer. The annual precipitation also shows an overall slight decreasing trend. (2) The spatial distribution is uneven, the annual precipitation in the northern Great Khingan Mountains is more, but it gradually decreases at the rate of 10–30 mm/decade, showing a trend of “wet gets dry”; while there is less in the southwest Gobi Desert region, but it gradually increases with the rate of 10–20 mm/decade, showing a trend of “dry gets wet”. (3) Over decades, the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) and westerly circulation show a seesaw change in MP. Affected by the weakening of the EASM, the area of arid regions has gradually expanded. The results also demonstrate that the EASM has a higher impact on the annual precipitation change pattern, particularly in the southeastern MP. The conclusion indicated that the variation in the position and orientation between EASM and the westerly circulation may be an explanation for the spatiotemporal precipitation pattern, providing a new viewpoint to the question of circulation mechanisms behind climate change in MP in recent 40 years.