Anthropogenic warming of Tibetan Plateau and constrained future projection

Serving as 'the water tower of Asia, the Tibetan Plateau (TP) supplies water resources to more than 1.4 billion people. It is warming more rapidly than the global average over the past decades, affecting regional hydrological cycle and ecosystem services. However, the anthropogenic (ANT) influence remains unknown. Here we assessed the human contribution to the observed TP warming based on coupled climate simulations and an optimal fingerprinting detection and attribution analysis. We show that the observed rapid warming on the TP (1.23 degrees C over 1961-2005) is attributable to human influence, and particularly, to the greenhouse gases with a contribution of 1.37 degrees C by the best estimate, which was slightly offset by anthropogenic aerosols. As the multi-model ensemble tends to underestimate the ANT warming trend, the constraint from the attribution results suggests an even warmer future on the TP than previously expected, implying further increased geohazard risks in the Asian water tower.

Automated summary

Research indicates that the rapid warming of the Tibetan Plateau is mainly attributable to human influence, particularly the contribution of greenhouse gases. The ensemble models tend to underestimate the warming trend caused by human influence, suggesting a potentially even warmer future for the Tibetan Plateau with increased geohazard risks in the Asian water tower.