Advances in the Spatio-Temporal Features of Soil Moisture over the Tibetan Plateau

Soil moisture is a key state variable of the land surface process controlling its thermal properties and hydrological processes,resulting in the variation of local atmospheric circulation and regional short-term climate anomalies. Tibetan Plateau,as the quite sensitive region of global climate change,plays a significant role on the Asian monsoon and global atmospheric cycle with water and energy exchange between land surface and atmosphere. Soil moisture data over the Plateau could provide crucial observation information and initial input data in the study of land-atmosphere interactions and numerical simulation and so forth. This paper presented the importance of soil moisture observation and studies to climate change over the Tibetan Plateau,reviewed the construction status of soil moisture network,the study of applicability and assessment with various substitution data,the spatio-temporal features of soil moisture along with its effect on precipitation and its response to climate change. The important problems that should be solved in the study of soil moisture over the Tibetan Plateau are put forward.