Understanding how land conditions affect air temperature near the ground is important for predicting weather and climate, especially over the Tibetan Plateau, where land–atmosphere interactions are strong during the summer monsoon. In this study, we analyzed data from ground-based observation stations across the northeastern and northwestern parts of the Tibetan Plateau. We examined how surface temperature relates to radiation (both from the sun and from clouds) and heat exchanges between the land and the atmosphere.

Our analysis showed that in the northeastern region, cloudy conditions tend to increase nighttime temperatures, likely because clouds reduce cooling after sunset. In the northwestern region, surface temperature during the day is more influenced by how much sunlight reaches the ground. At one high-altitude site in the southern region, we found that surface temperature is more affected by soil moisture conditions than by radiation, suggesting a different controlling factor there.

These findings improve our understanding of what drives temperature changes in different parts of the Tibetan Plateau. Our next step is to test whether a regional climate model can accurately simulate these differences across the Plateau.