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Recent and Future Climate Extremes in the Northeastern Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau Under Anthropogenic Forcing
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Recent and Future Climate Extremes in the Northeastern Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau Under Anthropogenic Forcing

Shuangjuan Wang, Feng Wang, Bao Yang, Chun Qin and Matthew P. Dannenberg
Geophysical research letters, Vol.52(11), e2025GL115814
06/16/2025
DOI: 10.1029/2025GL115814
Appears in  UI Libraries Support Open Access
url
https://doi.org/10.1029/2025GL115814View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

The northeastern Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau experienced a persistently wet regime since the 1960s. However, a severe drought occurred in the summer of 2023, pointing to the critical need to assess recent and future precipitation changes in this climate hotspot. Leveraging a newly developed millennial tree‐ring reconstruction with climate simulations, we show that both the recent humidification and precipitation deficit are exceptional, and the wet‐to‐dry transition is unprecedented over the past millennium. Despite model discrepancies and uncertainties, a subset of climate model simulations reproduced the multidecadal precipitation variability. Natural variability dominated the pre‐industrial precipitation patterns, while anthropogenic greenhouse gases are responsible for the recent humidification. Using a correlation‐based data‐model comparison, the region is projected to receive higher precipitation than its last‐millennium baseline through 2100, potentially exceeding the full‐ensemble estimates of CMIP6 projections. However, low‐precipitation summers similar to 2023 remain possible and, combined with future warming, could significantly impact regional ecosystems and socio‐economic systems. Plain Language Summary In the summer of 2023, an unusually dry season occurred in the northeastern Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau, contrasting with the wet conditions of the previous decades. In this study, we combine a robust millennial tree‐ring reconstruction with climate simulations to assess the region's recent and future precipitation changes. While the reconstruction reveals that recent wet and dry conditions are unprecedented over the last millennium, model simulations show significant discrepancies suggesting substantial model uncertainties in this region. We find that a subset of the model simulations well reproduced the multidecadal precipitation variability, suggesting that the anthropogenic forcing of greenhouse gases overwhelms internal climate variability and has induced wetting trends over recent decades. Based on a correlation‐based screening method that efficiently identifies models that best reflect last‐millennium precipitation change, this region is more likely to experience even wetter conditions in the 21st century than projected by the full model ensemble. However, even with this long‐term wetting trend, extreme droughts still remain possible under enhanced anthropogenic forcing. Key Points A millennial tree‐ring reconstruction reveals recent exceptional wet and dry conditions in the northeastern Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau Greenhouse gases are responsible for recent humidification, pre‐industrial multidecadal precipitation is dominated by internal variability The region is projected to be wetter than indicated by the full‐CMIP6 ensembles, but extreme droughts still remain possible
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