Non-FAU Project
Start date : 01.01.2021
End date : 31.12.2023
Studied interactions among climate dynamics, glacier retreat, hydrology, landscape change, and vegetation. Integrated climate modelling, remote sensing, dendroecology, stable-oxygen-isotope tracing, glacier mass-balance modelling, cambial-growth modelling, and future-climate scenarios.
Glaciers on the Tibetan plateau (TP) experienced dramatic rates of retreat during the past decades. At the same time, the warming climate has resulted in an extension of the growing season on the one hand, but to reduced summer monsoon activity on the other hand. Winter season has become shorter and warmer, resulting in a reduced snow cover and thus reduced water availability for vegetation during the dry pre-monsoon season. Beside an increased meltwater supply, receding glaciers have multiple effects on landscape dynamics, which are hardly studied on the TP, and which interact with the aggravating change of regional climate conditions. The project will combine climate modeling, remote sensing, dendroecology, and growth modeling on different temporal scales in a novel and interdisciplinary approach. The main aim is to enhance the understanding of process chains between climate dynamics and landscape change, glacier responses to changing monsoon dynamics, responses of the regional water budget, and vegetation dynamics. Given that annually and seasonally resolved dendroecological time series reveal rather immediate couplings between climate and tree growth variations, whilst glacier and hydrologic responses are considered delayed by internal system dynamics, a particular focus will be laid on the analysis of system-specific response times. Stable oxygen isotopes will be used as tracers to analyze the complex process chain from incoming precipitation, glacier melt water, up to vegetation response. The project will apply and develop various modeling tools, including climate and glacier mass balance models, cambial growth models, which will also be run for future climate change scenarios. The approach will be tested in a glaciated case study catchment on the eastern TP, and the implementation of different models for partial landscape compartments will be integrated in a way that can be transferred to other mountain regions.