Characteristics of Historical Precipitation in High Mountain Asia Based on a 15-Year High Resolution Dynamical Downscaling

The mountains of High Mountain Asia serve as an important source water for roughly one billion people living downstream. This research uses 15 years dynamically downscaled precipitation produced by the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to delineate contrasts in characteristics events between regions dominated Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) versus westerly disturbances during cool season (December March). Cluster analysis reveals a more complex spatial pattern than indicated some previous studies illustrates increasing importance at higher elevations. Although prior suggests that small number dominate western Himalaya Karakoram, WRF-downscaled is less infrequent large events. Integrated vapor transport (IVT) are tightly coupled both season, with maximizing IVT from south-southwest over Karakoram southeast-southwest Himalaya. During ISM, not strongly related direction, whereas Himalaya, primary secondary maxima occur flow west-southwest northwest, respectively. These differences drivers timing have implications hydrology, glacier mass balance, snow accumulation, their sensitivity climate variability change.