Ice core evidence of rapid climate and environmental changes on the Tibetan plateau

Abstract

Ice core records from the Tibetan Plateau (TP) provide regional indicators of climatic and environmental changes and permit reconstruction of variations in human-made atmospheric pollutants during past hundreds of years. To comprehensively understand the TP's climate and environment history, we addressed the past climate and environmental changes reconstructed by ice core evidences, focusing on the variations of anthropogenic pollutants (e.g., mercury, black carbon). Since the 1980s, more than 40 ice cores across the TP have been drilled and some of them are investigated. Key benchmarker layers within the TP ice cores, such as peak values of ß-activity and tritium in 1963 AD, provide effective means for precise dating. The TP ice core reconstructions revealed the recent warming from the 1900s with different warming rate on the southern or northern TP, which were also affected by the large-scale atmospheric circulations. Emissions of human-related pollutants have seriously affected and altered Earth's environment and shown an increasing trend in the TP ice cores, especially since the 1950s. These existed variability of the reconstructions among ice cores in different TP regions was mainly controlled by interactions between the South Asian monsoon and westerly intensity. We also discussed the uncertainties of TP ice core dating currently, highlighting the recent rapid climate warming is threatening ice core archives. In the future, new techniques for dating and chemical analysis should be explored and more ice core archives should be obtained for the next generation.