Activity 2.2 – Cyrosphere

 

Tibetan Plateau

NASA WorldView (2001)


NASA WorldView (2007)


Google Maps (2023)

Tibetan Plateau

Activity 2.2 – Cryosphere: Tibet, China

    The Tibetan Plateau, located in western China, is commonly referred to as the “Roof of the World, and the “Third Pole” for very important reasons. “Roof of the World” resembles the region's plateau that is currently the largest in size and altitude that one can think of as the roof of our planet, and “Third Pole” due to it hosting the largest amount of freshwater on Earth in glaciers that are not located at our Earth’s polar poles.(NASA, 2021) This is unfortunately one of the biggest examples of climate change affecting regions due to its size and quantity. For this assignment I am going to focus on the multiple interconnected lake bodies located to the west of the Tanggula Mountains. The images used are captured by NASA, available through their WorldView web application, and Google Maps.


Problem

Due to the Tibetan Plateau hosting the biggest reserve of freshwater stored in glaciers that is not our Earth’s polar poles, this is an excellent region to study the immediate effects climate change has on a region’s wildlife ecosystem, and even a huge mass of the world’s population. The Plateau hosts 1.7 billion people, more than 20% of the world’s population lives here.(World Meteorological Organization, 2020) The satellite imagery depicts how these handful bodies of lakes are rapidly expanding over the course of two decades, and displays drastic changes to its environment.

Explanation

    Widening of canals between lakes are eroding soil, adsorbing and its minerals on its former shores. This can cause wildlife to widen the area to gather and hunt for resources which can cause increased competition for survival due to climate change. Additionally, wildlife and vegetation who depend on resources near the shores of the lakes are in danger of regional extinction due to the ever changing landscape of their habitat. Furthermore, wildlife adapting and consuming other forms of vegetation can become pests to crops grown by humans. Finally, the loss of minerals and soil to grow vegetation can and will affect the human population who depend on crops nearby and have to compete with their surging human population, wildlife, and their crops.
 

References

NASA WorldView (2001), Satellite Image of Tanggula Lakes. Retrieved from https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/ 


NASA WorldView (2007), Satellite Image of Tanggula Lakes. Retrieved from https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/

Google Maps (2023), Satellite Image of Tanggula Lakes. Retrieved from  https://goo.gl/maps/

NASA Earth Observatory (2021), “Shrinking Glaciers and Growing Lakes”

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/148966/shrinking-glaciers-and-growing-lakes 


World Meteorological Organization (2020). Tandong Yao, Lonnie Thompson, Deliang Chen, Yinsheng Zhang, Ninglian Wang, Lin Zhao, Tao Che, Baiqing Xu, Guangjian Wu, Fan Zhang, Qiuhong Tang, Walter Immerzeel, Tobias Bolch, Francesca Pellicciotti, Xin Li, Wei Yang, Jing Gao and Weicai Wang, “Third Pole climate warming and cryosphere system changes”
https://public.wmo.int/en/resources/bulletin/third-pole-climate-warming-and-cryosphere-system-changes

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Activity 4.1 – US Environmental History and Major Regulations

Image
  In the Western Hemisphere, colonizers are sailing west to settle and exploit resources that were unavailable and unknown to the general population of the Eastern Hemisphere for the first time. Upon arriving and exploring the coast of a new continent, many colonizers consumed resources without any after thought on nursing their current exploited land and instead relocated to continue to consume and never reproduce. Jared Elliot created literature works in the 18th century that documented farming methods to address colonizers exhausting land resources then moving to other plots of land instead of replenishing them. Elliot summarized the wastefulness of the settlers, “... when they had worn out one piece they cleared another, without any concern to amend their Land.”. There is no evidence to show that Elliot’s work had any impact, but would soon help the urbanization of American cities on the east coast that would begin in the mid-19th century. ( Theis & Tomkin, 2018) The a...
Read more