ABSTRACT
At an average altitude of ~4500 m, the Tibetan Plateau, sometimes called the “Roof of the World,” is considered as one of the last frontier lands of the world. The plateau exerts profound thermal and dynamical in˜uences on the global atmospheric circulation and has great impacts on regional and global climate (Manabe and Broccoli, 1990; Thompson et al., 1997). The plateau is one of the most sensitive areas responding to climate change. Ice core records from the Dasuopu Glacier indicate that the past 50 years have been the warmest in 1000 years (Thompson et al., 2000). Meteorological records from 1955 to 1996 show that the mean annual temperature of the plateau has increased 0.16°C per decade and the mean winter temperature has increased 0.32°C per decade (Liu and Chen, 2000). The accelerated warming is expected to drive an array of signi‰cant physical and ecological changes in the region, particularly to the terrestrial water cycle, which plays an integral role in nearly every aspect of the plateau, due to its extremely high altitude, the vulnerable environment, the near-freezing temperatures in this region, and the extensive presence of permafrost and glaciers (Sheng and Yao, 2009).
