Abstract:Based on the surface sensible heat flux calculated by 149 observed stations (OBCH) and four reanalysis data from 1979 to 2017, the temporal and spatial characteristics of SH over the Tibetan Plateau(TP) were analyzed. The results show that the climatic averages of the SH for the main TP(terrain height over 3 000 m) are positive, indicating that the main body of the TP is a heat source in May, and also show the SH in western part of the TP(divided by 90°E) is larger than ones in the eastern part of the TP. The SH in the main part of the TP in May shows a weakening trend, except for the ERA-Interim, the SH of other three reanalysis data show a weakening trend in western plateau, the NCEP1, NCEP2, and JRA data are especially notable. The five sets of data show a weakening trend in eastern plateau, except for the OBCH data, which show a notably weakening trend. The EOF analysis finds that the other four sets of data in the first mode mainly showing consistency changes in the TP, except for the ERA-Interim data, and the spatial distribution of the second mode shows notable differences. According to the correlation analysis, the correlation shows that the ERA-Interim data is well related to the OBCH data in annual variations with a correlation coefficient of 0.70, but the NCEP2 data has significant differences from the OBCH data in annual variations with a correlation coefficient of 0.33.