How do gridded meteorological datasets perform in a typical data-scarce cryospheric basin?

Abstract

Gridded meteorological datasets have been widely used in meteorological and hydrological studies, especially in data-scarce regions. However, assessments of these datasets in cryospheric basins, which are highly sensitive to global warming, remain inadequate. Therefore, three representative gridded meteorological datasets, i.e., the China meteorological forcing dataset (CMFD), CN05.1, and the meteorological forcing dataset for the third-pole region (TPMFD), were systematically evaluated in the Nachitai Basin based on comparisons with limited gauge observations, pairwise intercomparisons, and hydrological simulations. All gridded precipitation and temperature datasets were in good agreement with gauge observations on an intra-annual scale, while substantial differences existed among them in terms of precipitation and temperature on an annual scale. Additionally, pairwise correlation analyses indicated that the temporal consistency between the datasets was higher than their spatial consistency. Furthermore, all three datasets achieved satisfactory and reasonable results in simulating glacier area and streamflow variations when used as inputs for the hydrological-hydrodynamic model, exhibiting the robustness of the model in this data-scarce basin. This study provides a more profound understanding of the significance of gridded datasets in data-scarce areas situated on the Tibetan Plateau.