Climate impacts of anthropogenic land use changes on the Tibetan Plateau

A general atmospheric circulation model (ECHAM5) has been applied to investigate the impact of land use changes on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) on local and global climate. The “control” simulation with current land cover reasonably represents the large-scale circulation and state of the atmosphere over the Tibetan Plateau and the surrounding region. Modifying the land cover to a hypothetical non-anthropogenically-influenced vegetation cover shows significant modifications to the local and remote climate. Compared to this scenario, the TP is warmer and drier under present conditions. The Indian summer monsoon is intensified and the East China summer monsoon is weakened due to human-induced land cover change on the TP. The mean global temperature has almost no variation, whereas precipitation slightly increases. Our study indicates that human-induced land use changes on the Tibetan Plateau have had a significant impact on local to regional, and to a lesser extent global, climate.