Contributing Authors: J. Box (USA), D. Bromwich (USA), R. Brown (Canada), J.G. Cogley (Canada), J. Comiso (USA), M. Dyurgerov (Sweden, USA), B. Fitzharris (New Zealand), O. Frauenfeld (USA, Austria), H. Fricker (USA), G. H. Gudmundsson (UK, Iceland), C. Haas (Germany), J.O. Hagen (Norway), C. Harris (UK), L. Hinzman (USA), R. Hock (Sweden), M. Hoelzle (Switzerland), P. Huybrechts (Belgium), K. Isaksen (Norway), P. Jansson (Sweden), A. Jenkins (UK), Ian Joughin (USA), C. Kottmeier (Germany), R. Kwok (USA), S. Laxon (UK), S. Liu (China), D. MacAyeal (USA), H. Melling (Canada), A. Ohmura (Switzerland), A. Payne (UK), T. Prowse (Canada), B.H. Raup (USA), C. Raymond (USA), E. Rignot (USA), I. Rigor (USA), D. Robinson (USA), D. Rothrock (USA), S.C. Scherrer (Switzerland), S. Smith (Canada), O. Solomina (Russian Federation), D. Vaughan (UK), J. Walsh (USA), A. Worby (Australia), T. Yamada (Japan), L. Zhao (China)

Observations: Changes in Snow, Ice and Frozen Ground

https://faculty.washington.edu/stevehar/rangeland%20degradation.pdf

Rangeland degradation on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau: A review of the evidence of its magnitude and causes

With a pace of about twice the observed rate of global warming, the temperature on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (Earth's third pole') has increased by 0.2 degrees C per decade over the past 50years, which results in significant permafrost thawing and glacier retreat. Our review suggested that warming enhanced net primary production and soil respiration, decreased methane (CH4) emissions from wetlands and increased CH4 consumption of meadows, but might increase CH4 emissions from lakes. Warming-induced permafrost thawing and glaciers melting would also result in substantial emission of old carbon dioxide (CO2) and CH4. Nitrous oxide (N2O) emission was not stimulated by warming itself, but might be slightly enhanced by wetting. However, there are many uncertainties in such biogeochemical cycles under climate change. Human activities (e.g. grazing, land cover changes) further modified the biogeochemical cycles and amplified such uncertainties on the plateau. If the projected warming and wetting continues, the future biogeochemical cycles will be more complicated. So facing research in this field is an ongoing challenge of integrating field observations with process-based ecosystem models to predict the impacts of future climate change and human activities at various temporal and spatial scales. To reduce the uncertainties and to improve the precision of the predictions of the impacts of climate change and human activities on biogeochemical cycles, efforts should focus on conducting more field observation studies, integrating data within improved models, and developing new knowledge about coupling among carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus biogeochemical cycles as well as about the role of microbes in these cycles.

The impacts of climate change and human activities on biogeochemical cycles on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

The Tibetan Plateau and surrounding mountains represent one of the largest ice masses of the Earth. The region, referred to by scientists as the Third Pole, covering 5 million km2 with an average elevation of >4000 m and including more than 100,000 km2 of glaciers, is the most sensitive and readily visible indicator of climate change. The area also demonstrates considerable feedbacks to global environmental changes. The unique interactions among the atmosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere on the Third Pole ensure permanent flow of Asia's major rivers, thus significantly influencing social and economic development of China, India, Nepal, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bhutan where a fifth of the world's population lives. Like Antarctica and the Arctic, a series of observations and monitoring activities in the Third Pole region have been widely implemented. Yet for a comprehensive understanding of the Third Pole, current observational resources need to be integrated and perfected, and research goals and approaches need to be updated and identified. The Third Pole Environment (TPE) program aims to attract relevant research institutions and academic talents to focus on a theme of ‘water–ice–air–ecosystem–human’ interactions, to reveal environmental change processes and mechanisms on the Third Pole and their influences on and responses to global changes, and thus to serve for enhancement of human adaptation to the changing environment and realization of human–nature harmony.

http://research.bpcrc.osu.edu/Icecore//publications/Yao_Thompson_et_al_Environmental_Development_2012.pdf

Third Pole Environment (TPE)

. The Tibetan Plateau (TP) has the largest areas of permafrost terrain in the mid- and low-latitude regions of the world. Some permafrost distribution maps have been compiled but, due to limited data sources, ambiguous criteria, inadequate validation, and deficiency of high-quality spatial data sets, there is high uncertainty in the mapping of the permafrost distribution on the TP. We generated a new permafrost map based on freezing and thawing indices from modified Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) land surface temperatures (LSTs) and validated this map using various ground-based data sets. The soil thermal properties of five soil types across the TP were estimated according to an empirical equation and soil properties (moisture content and bulk density). The temperature at the top of permafrost (TTOP) model was applied to simulate the permafrost distribution. Permafrost, seasonally frozen ground, and unfrozen ground covered areas of 1.06  ×  106 km2 (0.97–1.15  ×  106 km2, 90 % confidence interval) (40 %), 1.46  ×  106 (56 %), and 0.03  ×  106 km2 (1 %), respectively, excluding glaciers and lakes. Ground-based observations of the permafrost distribution across the five investigated regions (IRs, located in the transition zones of the permafrost and seasonally frozen ground) and three highway transects (across the entire permafrost regions from north to south) were used to validate the model. Validation results showed that the kappa coefficient varied from 0.38 to 0.78 with a mean of 0.57 for the five IRs and 0.62 to 0.74 with a mean of 0.68 within the three transects. Compared with earlier studies, the TTOP modelling results show greater accuracy. The results provide more detailed information on the permafrost distribution and basic data for use in future research on the Tibetan Plateau permafrost.

/pdf/a-new-map-of-permafrost-distribution-on-the-tibetan-plateau-244q7wvs1l.pdf

A new map of permafrost distribution on the Tibetan Plateau

Construction on permafrost foundations: Lessons learned from the Qinghai–Tibet railroad

Alpine cold ecosystem with permafrost environment is quite sensitive to climatic changes and the changes in permafrost can significantly affect the alpine ecosystem. The vegetation coverage, grassland biomass and soil nutrient and texture are selected to indicate the regime of alpine cold ecosystems in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The interactions between alpine ecosystem and permafrost were investigated with the depth of active layer, permafrost thickness and mean annual ground temperature (MAGTs). Based on the statistics model of GPTR for MAGTs and annual air temperatures, an analysis method was developed to analyze the impacts of permafrost changes on the alpine ecosystems. Under the climate change and human engineering activities, the permafrost change and its impacts on alpine ecosystems in the permafrost region between the Kunlun Mountains and the Tanggula Range of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau are studied in this paper. The results showed that the permafrost changes have a different influence on different alpine ecosystems. With the increase in the thickness of active layer, the vegetation cover and biomass of the alpine cold meadow exhibit a significant conic reduction, the soil organic matter content of the alpine cold meadow ecosystem shows an exponential decrease, and the surface soil materials become coarse and gravelly. The alpine cold steppe ecosystem, however, seems to have a relatively weak relation to the permafrost environment. Those relationships resulted in the fact that the distribution area of alpine cold meadow decreased by 7.98% and alpine cold swamp decreased by 28.11% under the permafrost environment degradation during recent 15 years. In the future 50 years the alpine cold meadow ecosystems in different geomorphologic units may have different responses to the changes of the permafrost under different climate warming conditions, among them the alpine cold meadow and swamp ecosystem located in the low mountain and plateau area will have a relatively serious degradation. Furthermore, from the angles of grassland coverage and biological production the variation characteristics of high-cold ecosystems in different representative regions and different geomorphologic units under different climatic conditions were quantitatively assessed. In the future, adopting effective measures to protect permafrost is of vital importance to maintaining the stability of permafrost engineering and alpine cold ecosystems in the plateau.

Impacts of permafrost changes on alpine ecosystem in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Ground temperature monitoring and its recent change in Qinghai–Tibet Plateau

The nature of frozen soil research along the Qinghai-Tibet Highway between 1993 and 2000 is systemically reviewed. Recent studies involve the engineering geology of frozen soil, the study of ground temperatures under the roadbed and the influence of the frozen soil environment, the engineering classification of frozen soils, and the use of geographical information systems. This research will materially assist in the construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Wu Qingbai

Papers

Construction on permafrost foundations: Lessons learned from the Qinghai–Tibet railroad

Impacts of permafrost changes on alpine ecosystem in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Ground temperature monitoring and its recent change in Qinghai–Tibet Plateau

A review of recent frozen soil engineering in permafrost regions along Qinghai-Tibet Highway, China

The effect of climate warming on the Qinghai-Tibet Highway, China