Global warming causes change in northern margin of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

The northern margin of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, or the "roof of the world", will become warmer and wetter under the influence of global warming, a study has shown.

The study, conducted by a team from Lanzhou University, was recently published in Chinese journal Scientia Sinica (Terrae).

Regarded as a driver and amplifier of global climate change, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, particularly the northern margin of it, in which the Asian summer monsoon and the mid-latitude westerly wind circulation intersect, is sensitive to climate change. As such, it's a typical area for studying climate change and its underlying mechanisms.

Based on ancient environmental records, paleoclimate simulations and modern observations, the team made a comparison of the dry-wet variations during the warm periods of the Holocene, the medieval warm period, the modern warm period and the next hundred years in the future on the northern margin of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

"The dry-wet pattern in the modern warm period on the northern margin of the plateau is similar to that of the medieval warm period, and continuous warming will lead to the expansion of the westerlies and a gradually moister climate. The future dry-wet changes will be more similar to the mid-Holocene warm period, which was characterized by warmth and moisture," said Li Yu, who led the study.

According to him, although a warmer and wetter condition will be presented on the northern edge of the plateau, the overall climate pattern of China will not be altered.

As early as the 1980s, the trend of warmer and wetter conditions in the northwest of China had been postulated by Shi Yafeng, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. This inference becomes more convincing through current authoritative studies by data collection, analysis and calculation.

Li believes that the peoriodism of climate change in the historical warm periods can provide a reference for predicting the dry and humid changes in the future. Exploring the rules and mechanisms of climate change on the northern margin of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and evaluating the future climate change trends in this region will help improve people's understanding of the climate and environmental change characteristics and response mechanisms of the northern margin of the plateau at different time scales.