Global warming weakened the summer monsoon and increased the evaporation, leading to more contribution of local evaporation moisture to the local precipitation for the monsoon areas. However, the descriptions of the contribution of the local moisture to the total precipitation and its characteristics have not been known very well. In this paper, taking the middle and lower Reaches of the Yangtze River (MLRYR) as a case and using the precipitation recycling process model, we analyzed the characteristics of the contribution of the local moisture to the total precipitation and the possible reasons. The results show that: the seasonal difference in precipitation recycling rates is obvious, the precipitation recycling rates in spring and summer are small (18.30% and 19.30%), the maximum in autumn is 30.50%, and the precipitation recycling rates in all seasons except summer show a significant upward trend (about 1.70%/10a). Additionally, the water vapor input into MLRYR from four boundaries significantly reduced except for the eastern boundary, and the water vapor contribution from the South and East borders is in summer, and the water vapor contribution from the North and West borders is in autumn, winter and spring. We suggest that the model of the precipitation recycling rate is important to evaluate the contribution of different water vapor sources, and help to further improve the ability of river water prediction in flood season.

Under global warming, the climate in semi-arid inland Eurasia (SAIE) has changed in an opposite manner, thereby seriously impacting the local ecological environment. However, the key influencing factors and physical mechanism remain inconclusive. In this paper, we remodel the precipitation recycling ratio (PRR) model to assess the contributions of moisture from different water vapor sources to local precipitation, analyze the characteristics of the PRR and precipitation in SAIE, and provide possible physical reasons based on the Clausius–Clapeyron equation. It is found that the PRR increased from 1970 to 2017 as the result of linear trend analysis, with obvious seasonality. Moreover, the component of precipitation contributed by locally evaporated moisture (P_l), and that contributed by advected moisture (P_a) as well as the total precipitation (P), increased during the past 48 years. In particular, the P_a, P_l, and P in autumn and winter all increased obviously during the past 20 years from the interdecadal change trend, as well as the PRR (P_l/P), which was opposite to the decrease in the total water vapor input I(Ω) in the horizontal direction. According to the Clausius–Clapeyron equation, one of the causes might be that global warming has accelerated the local water cycle and driven the increase in P_a, and the increase in atmospheric water holding capacity caused by global warming provides the power source. We suggest that the climate’s transformation from dry to wet in SAIE can only be temporary since SAIE is an inland area and the adjustment of atmospheric circulation did not lead to the increase in external water vapor.