Is Climate Change on the Tibetan Plateau Driven by Land Use/Cover Change?
Investigators: Oliver W. Frauenfeld (NSIDC/CIRES CPP), Tingjun Zhang (NSIDC/CIRES CPP) Objective: The goal of this proposal is to address the degree to which long-term temperature changes on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) are influenced by land use and land cover changes. If we are able to quantify this component of climate warming and find support for our hypothesis that temperature increases are primarily driven by surface processes related to changes in land cover, this will then enable us to pursue a full research proposal and a more comprehensive analysis of land surface processes on the TP. Background and importance Similar to high-latitude regions of the Northern Hemisphere, high-altitude areas seem to be especially susceptible to global climate change and have been shown to have warmed more, and perhaps sooner, than the rest of the globe. The TP in particular has been argued to be a harbinger of climate change due to its early and accelerated warming. Anthropogenic greenhouse gas for
