Relating Lightning Features and Topography over the Tibetan Plateau Using the World Wide Lightning Location Network Data

AbstractA systematic evaluation of the performance of the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) over the Tibetan Plateau is conducted using data from the Cloud-to-Ground Lightning Location System (CGLLS) developed by the State Grid Corporation of China for 2013–15 and lightning data from the satellite-based Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) for 2014–15. The average spatial location separation magnitudes in the midsouthern Tibetan Plateau (MSTP) region between matched WWLLN and CGLLS strokes and over the whole Tibetan Plateau between matched WWLLN and LIS flashes were 9.97 and 10.93 km, respectively. The detection efficiency (DE) of the WWLLN rose markedly with increasing stroke peak current, and the mean stroke peak currents of positive and negative cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning detected by the WWLLN in the MSTP region were 62.43 and −56.74 kA, respectively. The duration, area, and radiance of the LIS flashes that were also detected by the WWLLN were 1.27, 2.65, and 4.38 times those not detected by the WWLLN. The DE of the WWLLN in the MSTP region was 9.37% for CG lightning and 2.58% for total lightning. Over the Tibetan Plateau, the DE of the WWLLN for total lightning was 2.03%. In the MSTP region, the CG flash data made up 71.98% of all WWLLN flash data. Based on the abovementioned results, the ratio of intracloud (IC) lightning to CG lightning in the MSTP region was estimated to be 4.05.

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Melting Ice Rivers

Dirty, Sacred Rivers ◽

10.1093/oso/9780199845019.003.0011 ◽

2012 ◽

Author(s):

Cheryl Colopy

Keyword(s):

Global Warming ◽

Tibetan Plateau ◽

The Netherlands ◽

Sea Level ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

Mount Everest ◽

The Past ◽

The North ◽

The World ◽

The Government

From a remote outpost of global warming, a summons crackles over a two-way radio several times a week: . . . Kathmandu, Tsho Rolpa! Babar Mahal, Tsho Rolpa! Kathmandu, Tsho Rolpa! Babar Mahal, Tsho Rolpa! . . . In a little brick building on the lip of a frigid gray lake fifteen thousand feet above sea level, Ram Bahadur Khadka tries to rouse someone at Nepal’s Department of Hydrology and Meteorology in the Babar Mahal district of Kathmandu far below. When he finally succeeds and a voice crackles back to him, he reads off a series of measurements: lake levels, amounts of precipitation. A father and a farmer, Ram Bahadur is up here at this frigid outpost because the world is getting warmer. He and two colleagues rotate duty; usually two of them live here at any given time, in unkempt bachelor quarters near the roof of the world. Mount Everest is three valleys to the east, only about twenty miles as the crow flies. The Tibetan plateau is just over the mountains to the north. The men stay for four months at a stretch before walking down several days to reach a road and board a bus to go home and visit their families. For the past six years each has received five thousand rupees per month from the government—about $70—for his labors. The cold, murky lake some fifty yards away from the post used to be solid ice. Called Tsho Rolpa, it’s at the bottom of the Trakarding Glacier on the border between Tibet and Nepal. The Trakarding has been receding since at least 1960, leaving the lake at its foot. It’s retreating about 200 feet each year. Tsho Rolpa was once just a pond atop the glacier. Now it’s half a kilometer wide and three and a half kilometers long; upward of a hundred million cubic meters of icy water are trapped behind a heap of rock the glacier deposited as it flowed down and then retreated. The Netherlands helped Nepal carve out a trench through that heap of rock to allow some of the lake’s water to drain into the Rolwaling River.

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Roof of the World: Tibet, Pamirs

Colliding Continents ◽

10.1093/oso/9780199653003.003.0016 ◽

2013 ◽

Author(s):

Mike Searle

Keyword(s):

Tibetan Plateau ◽

High Elevation ◽

Tien Shan ◽

Palm Tree ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

Wet Season ◽

North West ◽

Mountain Ranges ◽

The North ◽

The World

The Tibetan Plateau is by far the largest region of high elevation, averaging just above 5,000 metres above sea level, and the thickest crust, between 70 and 90 kilometres thick, anywhere in the world. This huge plateau region is very flat—lying in the internally drained parts of the Chang Tang in north and central Tibet, but in parts of the externally drained eastern Tibet, three or four mountain ranges larger and higher than the Alps rise above the frozen plateau. Some of the world’s largest and longest mountain ranges border the plateau, the ‘flaming mountains’ of the Tien Shan along the north-west, the Kun Lun along the north, the Longmen Shan in the east, and of course the mighty Himalaya forming the southern border of the plateau. The great trans-Himalayan mountain ranges of the Pamir and Karakoram are geologically part of the Asian plate and western Tibet but, as we have noted before, unlike Tibet, these ranges have incredibly high relief with 7- and 8-kilometre-high mountains and deeply eroded rivers and glacial valleys. The western part of the Tibetan Plateau is the highest, driest, and wildest area of Tibet. Here there is almost no rainfall and rivers that carry run-off from the bordering mountain ranges simply evaporate into saltpans or disappear underground. Rivers draining the Kun Lun flow north into the Takla Makan Desert, forming seasonal marshlands in the wet season and a dusty desert when the rivers run dry. The discovery of fossil tropical leaves, palm tree trunks, and even bones from miniature Miocene horses suggest that the climate may have been wetter in the past, but this is also dependent on the rise of the plateau. Exactly when Tibet rose to its present elevation is a matter of great debate. Nowadays the Indian Ocean monsoon winds sweep moisture-laden air over the Indian sub-continent during the summer months (late June–September). All the moisture is dumped as the summer monsoon, the torrential rains that sweep across India from south-east to north-west.

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Plant phenological sensitivity to climate change on the Tibetan Plateau and relative to other areas of the world

Ecosphere ◽

10.1002/ecs2.2543 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Ji Suonan ◽

Aimée T. Classen ◽

Nathan J. Sanders ◽

Jin‐Sheng He

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Tibetan Plateau ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

The World ◽

Phenological Sensitivity

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An important mechanism sustaining the atmospheric "water tower" over the Tibetan Plateau

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions ◽

10.5194/acpd-14-18255-2014 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 14 (12) ◽

pp. 18255-18275 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

X. Xu ◽

T. Zhao ◽

C. Lu ◽

Y. Guo ◽

B. Chen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Tibetan Plateau ◽

Asian Summer Monsoon ◽

Monsoon Circulation ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

Moist Air ◽

Atmospheric Water ◽

Tropical Oceans ◽

The World ◽

Asian Summer ◽

Asian Summer Monsoon Circulation

Abstract. The Tibetan Plateau (TP), referred to as the "roof of the world" is also known as the "world water tower", because it contains a large amount of water resources and ceaselessly transports these waters to its surrounding areas. However, it is not clear how these waters are being supplied and replenished. In particular, how plausible hydrological cycles can be realized between tropical oceans and the TP. In order to explore the mechanism sustaining the atmospheric "water tower" over the TP, the relationship of a "heat source column" over the plateau and moist flows in the Asian summer monsoon circulation is investigated, here we show that the plateau's thermal structure leads to dynamic processes with an integration of two couples of lower convergences and upper divergences, respectively, over the plateau's southern slopes and main platform, which relay moist air in two ladders up to the plateau. Similarly to the CISK (Conditional Instability of the Second Kind) mechanism of tropical cyclones, the elevated warm-moist air, in turn, forces convective weather systems, hence building a water cycle over the plateau. An integration of mechanical and thermal TP-forcing is revealed in relation to the Asian summer monsoon circulation knitting a close tie of vapor transport from tropical oceans to the atmospheric "water tower" over the TP.

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On the Roof of the World, the Herders of the Tibetan Plateau Confronted by Change

Diversity of Family Farming Around the World ◽

10.1007/978-94-024-1617-6_24 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 273-284

Author(s):

Ruijun Long ◽

Xiao Jing Qi ◽

Luming Ding ◽

Tingting Yang ◽

Thierry Bonaudo ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Tibetan Plateau ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

The World

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THE ROUND WORLD IN EARLY TIBETAN-LANGUAGE NEWSPAPERS

10.21638/11701/9785288058455.09 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 151-168

Author(s):

Anna Sawerthal ◽

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

Tibetan Plateau ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

Media Discourse ◽

Intellectual Elite ◽

The World ◽

Cultural Sphere ◽

Modern Knowledge

In the first half of the twentieth century, most Tibetans believed the world to be flat. Yet, a debate had started to develop amongst an intellectual elite on whether the world might be round. At that time, a scholastic paradigm trending in Europe was entering the Tibetan plateau, which focused on a measurable, visible and tangible reality. In 1938 the Tibetan intellectual enfant terrible Dge ‘dun chos ‘phel published the famous article “The Round and Spherical World” in one of the first Tibetan-language newspapers, the Yul phyogs so so’i gsar ‘gyur me long (The Tibet Mirror, 1925–1963). For the said piece, Dge ‘dun chos ‘phel is often remembered as being the first Tibetan scholar publishing on the “round world” for Tibetans. Mostly overlooked has been the fact that his article is embedded in a media discourse which had started much earlier. Studying early Tibetan-language newspapers reveals that his article was only one contribution on the “round world” amongst many. The following study shows how early Tibetan-language newspapers were at the forefront of disseminating this knowledge into the Tibetan world. Studying articles on the shape of the world in the La dwags kyi ag bar (“Ladakh Newspaper”, 1904–1910, Kye lang ag bar (“Kyelang Newspaper”, 1926–1935), La dwags pho nya (“Ladakh Messenger”, 1937–1950s), and The Tibet Mirror, allows us to trace how modern knowledge entered the Tibetan cultural sphere. It further presents an opportunity to sketch out an early Tibetan-language public, as particular flows of information between these newspapers can be observed.

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The Dalai Lama and the Nechung Oracle

10.1093/oso/9780197533352.001.0001 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Christopher Bell

Keyword(s):

Seventeenth Century ◽

Sixteenth Century ◽

Tibetan Plateau ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

Dalai Lama ◽

Administrative Control ◽

The World ◽

Sentient Beings ◽

Relationship Of ◽

The Relationship

This book is about two immortals whose friendship has spanned nearly five hundred years across the Tibetan plateau and beyond. The first immortal is the Dalai Lama, the emanation of a bodhisattva, an enlightened being who voluntarily takes rebirth in the world to benefit sentient beings. The second immortal is a wrathful god named Pehar, who has possessed the Nechung Oracle since the sixteenth century. This book is the first to examine the relationship between these two monolithic figures, which strengthened in the seventeenth century during the reign of the Fifth Dalai Lama (1617–1682). This study is also the first extensive examination of the famed Nechung Oracle and his institution. In the seventeenth century, the protector deity Pehar and his oracle at Nechung Monastery were state-sanctioned by the nascent Tibetan government, becoming the head of an expansive pantheon of worldly deities assigned to protect the newly unified country. While the Fifth Dalai Lama and his government endorsed Pehar as part of a larger unification project, the governments of later Dalai Lamas continued to expand the deity’s influence, and by extension their own, by ritually establishing Pehar at monasteries and temples around Lhasa and across Tibet. Pehar’s cult at Nechung Monastery came to embody the Dalai Lama’s administrative control in a mutually beneficial relationship of protection and prestige, the effects of which continue to reverberate within Tibet and among the Tibetan exile community today.

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Preface

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences ◽

10.1098/rsta.1988.0120 ◽

1988 ◽

Vol 327 (1594) ◽

pp. 3-4

Keyword(s):

Tibetan Plateau ◽

Sea Level ◽

Unique Feature ◽

Tibet Plateau ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

Southern Tibet ◽

The Past ◽

Collision Tectonics ◽

The World ◽

Normal Thickness

The Tibetan Plateau is a unique feature of the Earth’s surface. Its elevation, 5 km above sea level, and a crust twice the normal thickness, have long been recognized as resultin g from the collision o f the Indian and Eurasian continents. The region is regarded as the prime example of collision tectonics. However, because Tibet was for long virtually inaccessible to geologists from the rest of the world, the mechanism by which the Plateau evolved and by which the crust was doubled in thickness, remained speculative. During the past two decades, Chinese geologists have explored and systematically mapped much of this vast and largely uninhabited region ; Academia Sinica mounted a series of geological expeditions. The results of this and other work were presented at an international symposium on the Qinghai—Xizang (Tibet) Plateau in Beijing in 1980 and demonstrated on a traverse through southern Tibet from Lhasa to Kathmandu .

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Past the climate optimum: Recruitment is declining at the world’s highest juniper shrublines on the Tibetan Plateau

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-3830 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Eryuan Liang ◽

Xiaoming Lu ◽

Yafeng Wang ◽

Flurin Babst ◽

Steven W. Leavitt ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Tibetan Plateau ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

Field Surveys ◽

Climate Conditions ◽

South Central ◽

Subsequent Decrease ◽

Central Tibetan Plateau ◽

The World ◽

Negative Impacts

<p>Alpine biomes are climate change hotspots, and treeline dynamics in particular have received much attention as visible evidence of climate-induced shifts in species distributions. Comparatively little is known, however, about the effects of climate change on alpine shrubline dynamics. Here, we reconstruct decadally resolved shrub recruitment history (age structure) through the combination of field surveys and dendroecology methods at the world&#8217;s highest juniper (Juniperus pingii var. wilsonii) shrublines on the south-central Tibetan Plateau. A total of 1,899 shrubs were surveyed at 12 plots located in four regions along an east-to-west declining precipitation gradient. We detected synchronous recruitment with 9 out of 12 plots showing a gradual increase from 1600 to 1900, a peak at 1900&#8211;1940, and a subsequent decrease from the 1930s onward. Shrub recruitment was significantly and positively correlated with reconstructed summer temperature from 1600 to 1940, whereas it was negatively associated with temperature in recent decades (1930&#8211;2000). Recruitment was also positively correlated with precipitation, except in the 1780&#8211;1830 period, when a trend toward wetter climate conditions began. This apparent tipping point in recruitment success coincides with a switch from positive to negative impacts of rising temperatures. &#160;Warming-induced drought limitation has likely reduced the recruitment potential of alpine juniper shrubs in recent decades. Continued warming is thus expected to further alter the dynamics of alpine shrublines on the Tibetan Plateau and elsewhere.</p>

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