Abstract
Northern Tibet is the headstream region for the Yangtze, Salween River, Mekong River, and numerous other inflowing rivers and high mountain lakes. Sustaining the environmental conditions in the region is of vital importance for Tibet and the whole of China. The alpine grassland ecosystem in Northern Tibet is the most important ecosystem and extremely sensitive to climate change and human activity. In this study, we analyzed the characteristics of climate variability based on observed meteorological data and future climate scenarios, and reviewed the impact of climate variability and to explore adaptation strategies of alpine grassland in Northern Tibet. The result showed that the annual mean temperature has increased by 0.31 °C·10a−1 while the annual total precipitation has increased by 14.6 mm·10a−1 with high inter-annual and inter-seasonal fluctuations in Northern Tibet from 1961 to 2008. The rising trends of temperature and precipitation would be continued and the aridity indices showed a decreasing trend in the future, which potentially predicts that the climate in Northern Tibet becomes warmer and dryer. The climate variability results the melting of glaciers, the expansion of inland high mountain lakes and the negative impacts on alpine grassland in recent years. In order to adapt to such possible future climate changes, the alpine grassland water-saving irrigation was recommended as key adaptation measure and also rational grazing management, alpine grassland fencing and artificial grass planting were selected as adaptation measures, to lower the negative impacts of climate variability on the alpine grassland ecosystem in Northern Tibet.
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Notes
Investigation of water levels rising of inland lakes in central and western region on Northern Tibet, Nagqu Prefecture government, China, 2005.
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Acknowledgements
We kindly acknowledge the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) and the World Climate Research Programme’s (WCRP’s) Coupled Model Intercomparison Project for collecting and archiving the model output and organizing the model data analysis activity. We are thankful to the modelling groups for providing their data for analysis. The data has been collected, analyzed, and is provided by the National Climate Center (NCC). The authors also wish to thank the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) for supplying the observed meteorological data and special thanks to Prof. Xu Yinlong for his provision of PRECIS climate change scenario data. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31170460), the National Key Project of Scientific and Technical Supporting Program of China (2012BAC20B05) and the cooperation project with Nagqu Grassland Station and the Institute of Agricultural Environment and Sustainable Development in Agriculture.
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Gao, Qz., Li, Y., Xu, Hm. et al. Adaptation strategies of climate variability impacts on alpine grassland ecosystems in Tibetan Plateau. Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change 19, 199–209 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-012-9434-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-012-9434-y