Past, present, and future geo-biosphere interactions on the Tibetan Plateau and implications for permafrost ...

• Main Authors: Ehlers, Todd A., Chen, Deliang, Appel, Erwin, Bolch, Tobias, Chen, Fahu, Diekmann, Bernhard, Dippold, Michaela A., Giese, Markus, Guggenberger, Georg, Lai, Hui-Wen, Li, Xin, Liu, Junguo, Liu, Yongqin, Ma, Yaoming, Miehe, Georg, Mosbrugger, Volker, Mulch, Andreas, Piao, Shilong, Schwalb, Antje, Thompson, Lonnie G., Su, Zhongbo, Sun, Hang, Yao, Tandong, Yang, Xiaoxin, Yang, Kun, Zhu, Liping
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier 2022
• Subjects: Degradation; Ecology; FOS Biological sciences; Global change; Management; Permafrost; Tibetan Plateau; Dewey Decimal Classification500 | Naturwissenschaften550 | Geowissenschaften; Dewey; permafrost
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.15488/13990; https://www.repo.uni-hannover.de/handle/123456789/14104

Interactions between the atmosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere, and geosphere are most active in the critical zone, a region extending from the tops of trees to the top of unweathered bedrock. Changes in one or more of these spheres can result in a cascade of changes throughout the system in ways that are often poorly understood. Here we investigate how past and present climate change have impacted permafrost, hydrology, and ecosystems on the Tibetan Plateau. We do this by compiling existing climate, hydrologic, cryosphere, biosphere, and geologic studies documenting change over decadal to glacial-interglacial timescales and longer. Our emphasis is on showing present-day trends in environmental change and how plateau ecosystems have largely flourished under warmer and wetter periods in the geologic past. We identify two future pathways that could lead to either a favorable greening or unfavorable degradation and desiccation of plateau ecosystems. Both paths are plausible given the available ...