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Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

Keywords

Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP); permafrost; investigation; monitoring; ground ice; carbon cycle

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Due to the climate warming and the implementation of China's western development strategy, the variation in permafrost has increasingly and significantly influenced the ecology, hydrology, climate, and engineering construction on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) during the past decades. Long-term in- situ monitoring and large-scale field investigation on permafrost have become a major demand for addressing key scientific and engineering issues in the cryosphere, ecology, hydrology, climate, and engineering construction in cold regions. Since the Cryosphere Research Station on Qinghai-Xizang Plateau of Chinese Academy of Sciences was established in 1987, we have conducted long-term continuous monitoring and large-scale field investigations on permafrost of the QTP, and thus synthetically studied the mechanisms of the change in hydrothermal conditions of permafrost and their simulations and ecological effects. Under the support of major programs funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and Chinese Academy of Sciences, we carried out many international cooperations actively and standardized the approaches of in- situ monitoring and field investigation on permafrost, and thus established the monitoring network of permafrost which is in the leading position around the world. We also quantitatively studied the spatial distribution, ground temperatures, thickness, and ground ice of permafrost on the QTP. By comparing the multi-source dataset and multi-models, we released the spatial grid dataset of ground temperatures, thickness, and ground ice of permafrost on the QTP with a spatial resolution of 1 km×1 km. Furthermore, based on the long-term monitoring dataset, we developed and improved the one-dimensional model of heat conduction and land-surface-process model for applying to the Tibetan permafrost, and thereby quantitatively estimated the variation of permafrost and its physical mechanisms on the QTP during the last three decades. Those results not only provide a basic-data support for the construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, the environmental protection of the Three-River Source national park, and the regional simulation of climate but also promote decision-making services for national demands and major scientific programs. Moreover, the spatial distributions of vegetation types, soil types, and soil organic carbon and nitrogen in the permafrost regions of the QTP also fill the gaps in those aspects and provide the basic-data support for the global research programs of the future Earth and the development of the Earth system models.

First page

1159

Last Page

1168

Language

Chinese

Publisher

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences

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