Impact of small-scale orography on deep boundary layer evolution and structure over the Tibetan Plateau

Basic, Ivan; Jadhav, Harshwardhan; Singh, Jaydeep; Schmidli, Juerg

doi:10.5194/acp-26-2007-2026

Articles | Volume 26, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-2007-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

The tropopause region in a changing atmosphere (TPChange)...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-2007-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 26, issue 3

Research article

|

09 Feb 2026

Research article |

| 09 Feb 2026

Impact of small-scale orography on deep boundary layer evolution and structure over the Tibetan Plateau

Ivan Basic, Harshwardhan Jadhav, Jaydeep Singh, and Juerg Schmidli

Data sets

Raw LES output from CM1 I. Bašić and H. Jadhav https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17093768

A Benchmark Simulation for Moist Nonhydrostatic Numerical Models (https://www2.mmm.ucar.edu/people/bryan/cm1/) G. H. Bryan and J. M. Fritsch https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0493(2002)130<2917:ABSFMN>2.0.CO;2

Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) 1 Arc-Second Global U. S. Geological Survey https://usgs.gov/centers/eros/science/usgs-eros-archive-digital-elevation-shuttle-radar-topography-mission-srtm-1

Short summary

We studied how small mountains shape the daily growth of the lower atmosphere over the Tibetan Plateau, one of the highest regions on Earth. Using computer simulations, we compared flat terrain with realistic terrain and with added winds. We found that even modest hills make the air mix more quickly and rise higher, and winds further strengthen this effect. Our results show that overlooking small terrain features can lead to underestimating how strongly the atmosphere mixes over high plateaus.