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China: The third pole

Nature volume 454, pages 393–396 (2008)Cite this article

Climate change is coming fast and furious to the Tibetan plateau. Jane Qiu reports on the changes atop the roof of the world.

The Tibetan plateau gets a lot less attention than the Arctic or Antarctic, but after them it is Earth's largest store of ice. And the store is melting fast. In the past half-century, 82% of the plateau's glaciers have retreated. In the past decade, 10% of its permafrost has degraded. As the changes continue, or even accelerate, their effects will resonate far beyond the isolated plateau, changing the water supply for billions of people and altering the atmospheric circulation over half the planet.

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Authors
  1. Jane Qiu
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Additional information

Jane Qiu writes for Nature from Beijing. See Editorial, page 367, and News Feature, page 384 For a podcast and more on China see www.nature.com/news/specials/china/

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Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research

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Qiu, J. China: The third pole. Nature 454, 393–396 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/454393a

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