Tibetan

Fire, aerosol, meteorological fields around the TP. The spatial distribution of fire density, the study area on the southern slope of the plateau (shaded), and the geographical locations of QOMS and Nam Co (a). The locations of QOMS and Nam Co are shown by squares and triangles, respectively. The time evolutions of the March to May average AOD at the Nam CO (dashed) and QOMS sites (solid) and the March to May average 10 m wind speed from MERRA2 (blue)…

Tibetan Plateau map showing the 135 lakes included in this study. Darker red colors in the scale bar and map indicate higher nitrogen dioxide measurements. Credit: Nature Geoscience (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41561-023-01200-8 Earth's complex systems interact between atmospheric, terrestrial, hydrological, cryological (ice and snow) and biological processes in feedback loops. Understanding their relationships is important for…

Graphical abstract. Credit: Science of The Total Environment (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.163355 As an important indicator of climate change in cold regions, changes in lake area are important for understanding hydrological and ecological processes in cold regions. The interplay between lakes and permafrost is complex.…

Credit: Environmental Science & Technology (2023). DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.2c07274 Permafrost in the Tibetan Plateau contains a large amount of soil organic carbon (SOC). Climate change leads to rapid permafrost degradation and thermal collapse, which can change the microgeomorphology and soil physical and chemical properties. Previous studies have proved that…

Modern pastures on the highland Tibetan Plateau. Credit: Li Tang, Author provided It's not called the Third Pole for nothing. The Tibetan Plateau forms the major portion of a vast upland area of ice and glaciers that covers some 100,000 square kilometers of Earth's surface. It is a cold, arid and unforgiving landscape that couldn't…

Lhanag-tso lake, with the high altitude of 4,574 meters. Credit: Wang Longhuan The Inner Tibetan Plateau is an endorheic basin with densely distributed lakes that serve as "sentinels" of climate change. With climate warming and humidification, the lakes on the Inner Tibetan Plateau have experienced a dramatic expansion. Thus, drainage reorganization events can occur, which in turn, pose a flood risk to surrounding villages and…

Present-day topographic features of the NE Tibetan plateau. Credit: Science China Press A joint research team led by Dr. Wei Hong-Hong of the Institute of the Tibetan plateau at the Chinese Academy of Science has just published a study on mechanisms for mid-Tertiary uplifting of the NE Tibetan plateau in National Science Review. A…

(a) Geographical location of Lake Dalzong; (b) Photo showing the activity of aromatic plant-burning around Lake Dalzong (taken on June 7th, 2020). Credit: Science China Press Xiahe County, located in Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in the northeastern part of the Tibetan Plateau, is known as "Little Tibet." For a long time, all aspects of human survival, social development and cultural accumulation in the region have been…

Schematic diagram illustrating the mechanism how Asian summer climate is connected to the zonal flow over the Tibetan Plateau. (a) Climatological westerly flow prevails. (b) Easterly flow prevails such as in 2022. Credit: He Chao In the mid-summer (July–August) of 2022, extreme climate events occurred over subtropical Asia. Persistent heat waves hit the Yangtze River valley in East Asia, bringing secondary disasters such as…

Summer precipitation and black carbon emission characteristics. a The spatial pattern of summer precipitation using the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) dataset overlain with summer 500 hPa wind fields for the period 2001–2016, using the ERA-Interim dataset over the Tibetan plateau (TP) and South Asia (denoted by red polygon). NTP and STP delineate the northern and southern Tibetan plateau boundaries. b Plots of the accumulative anomaly in summer…