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Tibetan Plateau: Formation, Climate and Ecosystems
Erwin Appel & Volker Mosbrugger
Preamble Like Antarctica and the Arctic, the Tibetan Plateau is a key area of the globe. Its formation had a profound impact on the environmental evolution at regional and global scales and until today directly influences the habitat of billions of people. Moreover, the Tibetan plateau, like the polar regions, proves to be particularly sensitive to anthropogenic Global Change. It thus deserves a major coordinated research programme which now becomes possible due to recent political developments and improved Sino-German cooperation in geoscience. The proposed priority programme TiP will study the Tibetan Plateau focusing on three interlinked processes, (a) plateau formation, (b) climate evolution, (c) human impact and Global Change. The key processes are analysed with respect to their impact on ecosystems on three different time scales:
Plateau formation (uplift dynamics and related climate change) during the last millions to several tens of millions of years, Late Cenozoic climate evolution and environmental response during the last tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years with decadal to centennial resolution, Phase of human impact and Global Change focusing on the present stage, the past ~8000 years, and perspectives for the future.
Summary The Tibetan Plateau is of outstanding relevance for society because it is a determining factor for the Asian monsoon system. A major part of Asia's water supply is dependent on the hydrological cycle related to the plateau. Human impacts on it may have far reaching consequences. The formation of the plateau, especially its tectonic uplift, is still an enigma in Earth science. The priority programme TiP will research processes, interactions, and feedbacks of the driving forces plateau formation - climate - human impact and their effect on ecosystems on three different time scales: (1) Plateau formation and related climate change of the past ~70 million years, (2) Late Cenozoic climate evolution and environmental response during the last hundred thousand years, (3) human impact and Global Change on ecosystems during the past ~8000 years and future perspectives.
Copyright acknowledgement - Authors, Ervin Appel and Volker Mosbrugger Original Source - The "Tibetan Plateau : Formation - Climate - Ecosystems" (TiP) Project, DFG, 1999-2012
Ref. Vol. XVIII Ch. 136 C Pg. 8073-8090
Tibetan Plateau: Formation-Climate-Ecosystems
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