The tibetan plateau as the engine for asian environmental change: the tibetan plateau earth system research into a new era

Abstract The Tibetan Plateau (TP) is a regional Earth system showing very strong interactions among its lithosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, biosphere, atmosphere, and anthrosphere. These interactions manifest TP's impact on surrounding regions and reflect TP's response to the global change. Quantifying the multispherical interactions is critically important to understand the TP environment. Our recent years researches including the ongoing program entitled ‘Tibetan Multi-Spheres Interactions and Their Resource-Environment Significance (TIMI)’, the completed program entitled. ‘Paleo-Altitudes of Tibetan Plateau and Environment (PATE)’, as well as the other relating projects have focused on multidisciplinary research approaches and emphasized on three major pathways: Eurasia-Indian plates collision on deep-Earth dynamics, uplift impact on Earth's mantle–crust dynamics, and contemporary interface on land surface and atmospheric dynamics. Our researches have taken in situ measurement as priority and developed several platforms of data acquisition and analysis, including the platforms of water-phase transformations, and ecosystem observations. Our field investigations have been conducted to obtain data about stratum, paleontology, paleoenvironment, genetic differentiation of animals and plants. We have developed conceptual and mathematical models for crust uplift formation, paleoclimate, glacial melt, water–air interface flux, vegetation climate, and soil erosion. We have also assessed the anthropogenic impacts on environment. Our researches have achieved new and reliable redating of the mantle–crust interaction and initial formation of the TP, found the interaction between tectonics and uplift of the TP and resultant paleoaltitude acting as a spreading source; discovered the interaction between the westerlies and Indian monsoon acting as a control chain that dominates the TP's contemporary environment. The scientific results can play fundamental roles in supporting the TP's resource exploration and societal sustainable development.

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Bacterial responses to environmental change on the Tibetan Plateau over the past half century

Environmental Microbiology ◽

10.1111/1462-2920.13115 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 18 (6) ◽

pp. 1930-1941 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Yongqin Liu ◽

John C. Priscu ◽

Tandong Yao ◽

Trista J. Vick-Majors ◽

Baiqing Xu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Tibetan Plateau ◽

Environmental Change ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

Half Century ◽

The Past ◽

Past Half Century ◽

Past Half

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Mapping Croplands in the Granary of the Tibetan Plateau Using All Available Landsat Imagery, A Phenology-Based Approach, and Google Earth Engine

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs13122289 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (12) ◽

pp. 2289

Author(s):

Yuanyuan Di ◽

Geli Zhang ◽

Nanshan You ◽

Tong Yang ◽

Qiang Zhang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Food Security ◽

Tibetan Plateau ◽

Environmental Change ◽

Landsat Imagery ◽

Google Earth ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

Crop Phenology ◽

Cropland Area ◽

Google Earth Engine ◽

Cropland Mapping

The Tibetan Plateau (TP), known as “The Roof of World”, has expansive alpine grasslands and is a hotspot for climate change studies. However, cropland expansion and increasing anthropogenic activities have been poorly documented, let alone the effects of agricultural activities on food security and environmental change in the TP. The existing cropland mapping products do not depict the spatiotemporal characteristics of the TP due to low accuracies and inconsistent cropland distribution, which is affected by complicated topography and impedes our understanding of cropland expansion and its associated environmental impacts. One of the biggest challenges of cropland mapping in the TP is the diverse crop phenology across a wide range of elevations. To decrease the classification errors due to elevational differences in crop phenology, we developed two pixel- and phenology-based algorithms to map croplands using Landsat imagery and the Google Earth Engine platform along the Brahmaputra River and its two tributaries (BRTT) in the Tibet Autonomous Region, also known as the granary of TP, in 2015–2019. Our first phenology-based cropland mapping algorithm (PCM1) used different thresholds of land surface water index (LSWI) by considering varied crop phenology along different elevations. The second algorithm (PCM2) further offsets the phenological discrepancy along elevational gradients by considering the length and peak of the growing season. We found that PCM2 had a higher accuracy with fewer images compared with PCM1. The number of images for PCM2 was 279 less than PCM1, and the Matthews correlation coefficient for PCM2 was 0.036 higher than PCM1. We also found that the cropland area in BRTT was estimated to be 1979 ± 52 km2 in the late 2010s. Croplands were mainly distributed in the BRTT basins with elevations of 3800–4000 m asl. Our phenology-based methods were effective for mapping croplands in mountainous areas. The spatially explicit information on cropland area and distribution in the TP aid future research into the effects of cropland expansion on food security and environmental change in the TP.

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Impacts of environmental change and human activity on microbial ecosystems on the Tibetan Plateau, NW China

GSA Today ◽

10.1130/gsatg75a.1 ◽

2010 ◽

pp. 4-10 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

Hailiang Dong ◽

Hongchen Jiang ◽

Bingsong Yu ◽

Xingqi Liu

Keyword(s):

Tibetan Plateau ◽

Environmental Change ◽

Human Activity ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

Nw China ◽

Microbial Ecosystems

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Impact of environmental change on runoff in a transitional basin: Tao River Basin from the Tibetan Plateau to the Loess Plateau, China

Advances in Climate Change Research ◽

10.1016/j.accre.2020.02.002 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 (4) ◽

pp. 214-224

Author(s):

Long Sun ◽

Yue-Yang Wang ◽

Jian-Yun Zhang ◽

Qin-Li Yang ◽

Zhen-Xin Bao ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Tibetan Plateau ◽

Environmental Change ◽

River Basin ◽

Loess Plateau ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

The Loess Plateau

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How the Updated Earth System Models Project Terrestrial Gross Primary Productivity in China under 1.5 and 2 °C Global Warming

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su132111744 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (21) ◽

pp. 11744

Author(s):

Chi Zhang ◽

Shaohong Wu ◽

Yu Deng ◽

Jieming Chou

Keyword(s):

Global Warming ◽

Tibetan Plateau ◽

Primary Productivity ◽

Gross Primary Productivity ◽

Ecological Indicator ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

Earth System ◽

Max Planck ◽

System Models ◽

Earth System Models

Three Earth system models (ESMs) from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6) were chosen to project ecosystem changes under 1.5 and 2 °C global warming targets in the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway 4.5 W m−2 (SSP245) scenario. Annual terrestrial gross primary productivity (GPP) was taken as the representative ecological indicator of the ecosystem. Under 1.5 °C global warming, GPP in four climate zones—i.e., temperate continental; temperate monsoonal; subtropical–tropical monsoonal; high-cold Tibetan Plateau—showed a marked increase, the smallest magnitude of which was around 12.3%. The increase was greater under 2 °C of global warming, which suggests that from the perspective of ecosystem productivity, global warming poses no ecological risk in China. Specifically, in comparison with historical GPP (1986–2005), under 1.5 °C global warming GPP was projected to increase by 16.1–23.8% in the temperate continental zone, 12.3–16.1% in the temperate monsoonal zone, 12.5–14.7% in the subtropical–tropical monsoonal zone, and 20.0–37.0% on the Tibetan Plateau. Under 2 °C global warming, the projected GPP increase was 23.0–34.3% in the temperate continental zone, 21.2–24.4% in the temperate monsoonal zone, 16.1–28.4% in the subtropical–tropical monsoonal zone, and 28.4–63.0% on the Tibetan Plateau. The GPP increase contributed by climate change was further quantified and attributed. The ESM prediction from the Max Planck Institute suggested that the climate contribution could range from −12.8% in the temperate continental zone up to 61.1% on the Tibetan Plateau; however, the ESMs differed markedly regarding their climate contribution to GPP change. Although precipitation has a higher sensitivity coefficient, temperature generally plays a more important role in GPP change, primarily because of the larger relative change in temperature in comparison with that of precipitation.

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