Climate change in the western Tianshan Mountains and oasis climate effect in the irrigated areas

摘要

In this paper, the characteristics of climate change in the west Tianshan Mountains for last 40 years are discussed. The trend of climate change and its effect combined with the oasis climate effect in the irrigated areas are analyzed. The regional characteristics of climate change and the temporal and spatial distribution characteristics of sand-dust storms, floating dusts and strong winds are compared and analyzed based on the observed data collected from 14 meteorological stations in the source stream area of Aksu River, Aksu Irrigated Area and Yarkant River Irrigated Area during the period of 1961-2000. We concluded that both temperature and precipitation have increased in these regions since 1990's. It is observed with higher precipitation in the area of Aksu River there are fewer days when sand-dust storms, floating dusts and strong winds happened. The interaction between the climate change and the oasis development is also discussed.