Moisture Sources of the Precipitation Over the Pamirs Plateau in Winter and Spring

The precipitation in Pamirs Plateau plays a vital role in the water resources in the arid areas of Central Asia. Understanding the moisture sources and water vapor transportation associated with precipitation are very important, but there were few studies investigating the moisture sources of Pamirs Plateau. We used the Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory model driven with the high-resolution WRF output to analyze the moisture sources at Northern Pamirs Plateau (NPP) and Southern Pamirs Plateau (SPP) in spring and winter, 2016 and 2017, as the annual precipitation in Pamirs Plateau were the largest in 2016 and the lowest in 2017, and the precipitation in spring and winter was much higher than that in summer and autumn. The moisture sources from four regions were quantified, which were North Atlantic-Europe (NAE), Arctic-Northern Asia (ANA), Atlantic-Africa (AA), and Indian Ocean (IO), respectively. In spring, 2016, AA contributed the most to the moisture at NPP (38.50%) and SPP (36.70%), which was affected by the anomalous cyclone and positive water vapor anomaly over the Arabian Peninsula. In spring, 2017, IO contributed the most to moisture sources at NPP (32.73%) and SPP (40.81%). The moisture contributions from four regions to the precipitation at NPP and SPP were similar in spring. In winter, 2016, the strong westerlies and the anticyclone over the Arabian Peninsula strengthened the water vapor transmission in the Persian Gulf, and AA contributed the most to water vapor at NPP (33.85%), while IO contributes the most to the moisture at SPP (44.45%). In winter, 2017, the largest source region of moisture was AA at NPP (36.88%) and SPP (40.09%). In winter, the four regional moisture contributions to the precipitation at NPP and SPP were similar in 2017, but they show great difference in 2016. Our study highlights the importance of atmospheric circulations over the Arabian Peninsula affecting the precipitation at Pamirs Plateau.