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NEWSLETTER No. 1 (July 2012)

Dear friends and colleagues, the Pamir-Tibet plateau and the adjacent mountain ranges and sedi-mentary basins of Central Asia represent a key area in Earth System Dynamics. The region is inhabited by billions of people which largely depend on the monsoo-nal system and its interaction with the Westerlies. This monsoonal system is strongly influenced by the Pamir-Tibet Plateau acting as a “Third Pole” and by human impact on its geo-ecosystems. Two major international projects investigate the past, present and future of this

dynamic region focusing on the interactions between geosphe-re, biosphere, hydro-/ cryosphe-re and anthroposphere: The Sino-German Programme TiP (Tibetan Plateau - Formation - Climate - Ecosystems;www.tip.uni-tuebingen.de),funded by Deutsche For-schungsgemeinschaft (DFG = German Research Foundation), and the multinational Research and Development Programme CAME (Central Asia - Monsoon Dynamics and Geoecosystems;

www.zentralasien.senckenberg.de) supported by the ‚Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung‘ (BMBF = German Ministry of Education and Research). Herewith we present the first issue of a joint newsletter informing both communi-ties about ongoing research in order to generate synergies and foster transdiscip-linary cooperation. Please contribute with your results, ideas and activities and help to make both programmes an internationally recognized success.

Yours,

Volker Mosbrugger Erwin Appel

Generally, the investigations of the ten joint project groups of the research programme are pursuing an integ-rated system approach. Additionally to the widely scatte-red R&D related topics, it also tackles one of the major challenges arising to science and society, i.e. to assess the share of climate and environmental changes resulting from human intervention in geo-ecosystems.The 10 joint projects cover three main themes:1) young geodynamics - climate - humans2) geo-ecosystems - human impact and climate change3) monsoon-dynamics: driving factors & internal coup-ling.

The main focus of DFG priority programme 1372 TiP is the investigation of the interactions of the three forcing mechanisms of the Tibetan Plateau: Plateau formation, climate evolution, human impact, and their effects on ecosystems.

The BMBF research programme CAME addresses recent problems in the fields of climate change, geodynamics, geo-resources (including water), and geo-hazard potential of the area. It focuses on research and development issues of global importance, i.e. monsoon dynamics and climate change. TiP studies the Tibetan Plateau focusing on three interlinked

processes:The key processes are analysed with respect to their impact on ecosystems on three different time scales: On the one hand Plateau formation (uplift dynamics and related climate change) during the last millions to several tens of millions of years. On the other hand Late Cenozoic climate evolution and environmental response during the last tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years with decadal to centennial resolution. And in addition: Phase of human impact and Global Change focusing on the present stage, the past ~8000 years, and perspectives for the future.

Research on plateau and climate evolution and geo-ecosystems of the Tibetan Plateau and Central Asia

Weather station at the terminus of Naimona'nyi Glacier,southwestern Tibetan Plateau

CADY: Central Asian Climate Dynamics

Global climate change is one of the key concerns of the 21st century, with serious implications for economies, societies and the environment. Central Asia, though rich in mineral resour-ces, suffers from water scarcity. Since all the Central Asian countries rely heavily on irrigated agriculture, future climate change will strongly impact water availability, energy security, and sustainable development in the region. This issue needs to be urgently addressed, because any changes in the factors governing regional hydrology, or the magnitude of their impact (e.g. severity of droughts and floods) would be critical for infra-structural planning and securing food supplies in a global war-ming scenario.The project CADY (Central Asian Climate Dynamics) aims to reconstruct the Holocene climate variability and regional hydro-logy in the Asia along two W-E transects sandwiching the Tibetan Plateau and one N-S transect cutting across the Plateau. While the largest focus of investigations in CADY is in Central Asia, the data from ongoing additional projects, funded by the BMBF and the DFG will provide an overview of the Asian climate variability (seasonality, extreme climate events, teleconnections) during the Holocene.

The CADY participants contribute a wide range of expertise ranging from biology, geochemistry,geology, dendroclimatology, and climate modeling enabling a coordinated interdisciplinary approach to multiple proxies and archives.We focus on selected time spans (e.g. early Holocene warm period, the Me-dieval Warm Period, the Little ice age etc). Palaeoclimate simulations of different duration and on selected time spans will be carried out using the generated data. The combination of proxy data and model simulations will lead to an improved understanding of the physical mechanisms controlling the monsoon dynamics.In addition to the Deutsches GFZ (Project coordination, PD Dr. Sushma Prasad), the following additional Institutes

are involved: Freie Universität Berlin, Senckenberg Forschungsinstitut und Naturmuseum, Friedrich Schiller Universität Jena, Technische Universität Braun-schweig, Max Planck Institut für Biogeochemie Jena. CADY will be funded between 2011-2014.

Conferences and Meetings

NEWSLETTER Research on plateau and climate of the Tibetan Plateau

evolution and geo-ecosystemsand Central Asia

DynRG-TiP: Dynamic response of glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau to climate change

Glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau (TiP) are characteristic elements of the natural environment forming water resources of cardinal importance both for ecosystems and local population. Since the 1990s accelerating changes in glacial systems associated with rising air temperatures have been obser-ved. Despite the many glaciological studies little is still known on the dynamic response of glaciers on the TiP to climate change.

The central goal of DynRG-TiP is to improve our understan-ding of atmosphere-cryosphere interactions on the TiP by adding new data and improved methods on short- and long-term variations in energy and mass balance components due to large-scale atmospheric forcing, including variations and shifts in glacier dynamics induced by climate change.

Field studies and remote sensing data analysis focused on glaciers in the Nyainqentanglha Mountains near Nam Co, where the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research (ITP) of the Chinese Academy of Science operates a research station. Additionally, an automatic weather station has been set up in August 2011 in the Naimona'nyi Region, also known as Gurla Mandhata, in south-west Tibet.Field measurements will be continued, updated and comple-ted to prepare a system running year-round that shall be handed over to the Chinese partners from ITP-CAS in summer 2012 for continued operation in the future. Based on the observational data DynRG-TiP partners are improving, validating and applying an optimized numerical model framework for computing surface energy and mass balance compo-nents of the Zhadang Glacier in the Nyainqentanglha Mountains and of other selected glaciers on

the Tibetan Plateau.

In order to understand the spatial patterns of large-scale atmospheric forcing of glacier evolution, the processing chain of remote sensing data and modeled atmospheric data will be transferred to glacier locations along a west-east transect. The distinct patterns of glacier changes and varying influence of Indian Monsoon and Westerlies along this profile will be analysed to estimate the future dynamic response of these glaciers to climate change.As a part of the DFG Priority Programme 1372, DynRG-TiP is a joined project of TU Berlin, TU Dresden and RWTH Aachen together with the Chinese project part-ners of the ITP. DFG funding is granted between 2008 - 2014.

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DynRG working areaSino-German Workshop in Chengdu, China 16.-18. November 2012

(see also www.tip.uni-tuebingen.de/)

Annual Meeting of the CAME research programme 20.+ 21. September 2012 in Frankfurt/Main, Germany (see also www.zentralasien.senckenberg.de)

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Here, we present two project groups, one of each research programme, by a short summary of their scientific aims and investigations.

NEWSLETTER

Editorial.Senckenberg Natural History Museum and Research InstituteSenckenberganlage 25; 60325 Frankfurt/Main; GermanyEditorial staff: Judith Jördens, Sybille RollerPrinted by dieUmweltDruckerei, Hannover, Germany

ContactCAME project coordinationProf. Dr. Volker Mosbrugger

Prof. Dr. Erwin Appel

Prof. Dr. Dieter Uhl

Dr. Sybille Roller (coordination office):

sybille.roller@senckenberg.de

Ilona Bröhl (press office):

ilona.broehl@senckenberg.de

TiP project coordinationProf. Dr. Erwin Appel

Dr. Wolfgang Rösler (coordination office):

wolfgang.roesler@uni-tuebingen.de

Judith Jördens (press office):

judith.joerdens@senckenberg.de

Websiteswww.tip-tuebingen.de

www.zentralasien.senckenberg.de

The joint projects CAME and TiP are initiated as the German contributions to the big Chinese international R & D program ‚Third Pole Environ-ment‘ (TPE) in which scientists of numerous nations participate and which is supported by UNESCO and its affiliated institutions SCOPE and UNEP. The Third Pole Environment (TPE) program aims to attract relevant research institutions and aca-demic talents to focus on a theme of ‘water-ice-air-ecosystem-human’ interaction in the TPE. It intends to reveal environmental change processes and mechanisms on the Third Pole and their influences and regional responses to global changes, especially monsoon systems, and thus to support the enhancement of human adaptation to the changing environment and

realization of human-nature harmony.The scientific goal is to reveal and quantify, from the perspectives of earth system sciences, the interactions among atmosphere, cryosphe-re, hydrosphere, biosphere and anthroposphere on the Third Pole and their influences on the globe in order to assess the likely future impacts of global change (for further information see website: www.tpe.ac.cn).

International cooperation Staff portraitAntje Schwalb is Professor for Geology and Geosystems at the Technical University of Braunschweig (Germany) since 2002 and head of the newly founded Institute for Geosystems and Bioindica-tion. With her expertise, she both contributed to the TiP research plan and is a member of the TiP steering committee, as well as being involved in the CAME-joint project CADY (presented in this issue) as one of the principal investigators. Her work experience on the Tibetan Plateau reaches back to the year 2005 and focuses on the temporal characterization of monsoon and melt water dynamics using aquatic organisms and geochemical proxies from lake sediments.

The three co-chairs of the TPE steering committee in discus-sion. From left to right: Volker Mosbrugger, Yao Tandong, Lonnie Thompson. (Photo: D.Joswiak)