Oceanic climate changes threaten the sustainability of Asia's water tower ...
Water resources sustainability in High Mountain Asia (HMA) surrounding the Tibetan Plateau (TP)-known as Asia's water tower-has triggered widespread concerns because HMA protects millions of people against water stress1,2. However, the mechanisms behind the heterogeneous trends observed in terr...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
ETH Zurich
2023
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000603060 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/603060 |
| Summary: | Water resources sustainability in High Mountain Asia (HMA) surrounding the Tibetan Plateau (TP)-known as Asia's water tower-has triggered widespread concerns because HMA protects millions of people against water stress1,2. However, the mechanisms behind the heterogeneous trends observed in terrestrial water storage (TWS) over the TP remain poorly understood. Here we use a Lagrangian particle dispersion model and satellite observations to attribute about 1 Gt of monthly TWS decline in the southern TP during 2003-2016 to westerlies-carried deficit in precipitation minus evaporation (PME) from the southeast North Atlantic. We further show that HMA blocks the propagation of PME deficit into the central TP, causing a monthly TWS increase by about 0.5 Gt. Furthermore, warming-induced snow and glacial melt as well as drying-induced TWS depletion in HMA weaken the blocking of HMA's mountains, causing persistent northward expansion of the TP's TWS deficit since 2009. Future projections under two emissions scenarios ... : Nature, 615 (7950) ... |
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