Rapid warming has resulted in the formation of 99 new lakes and “extensive” lake expansion across the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau over the last four decades, according to Climate change researchers.
The findings were published in the latest edition of the American journal “Geophysical Research Letters.”
Besides the north and south poles, the Qinghai-Tibet and Mongolian plateaus are the most sensitive regions to climate change, said Zhang Guoqing from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research.
The two adjacent plateaus have been changing in opposite directions in response to climate change, state-run Xinhua news agency quoted the paper as saying. “We found 99 new lakes and extensive lake expansion on the Tibetan Plateau during the past four decades from 1970 to 2013,” said Zhang.