Impacts of snow and glaciers over Tibetan Plateau on Holocene climate change: Sensitivity experiments with a coupled model of intermediate complexity

An Earth system model of intermediate complexity has been used to investigate the sensitivity of simulated global climate to gradually increased snow and glacier cover over the Tibetan Plateau for the last 9000 years ( 9 kyr). The simulations show that in the mid-Holocene at about 6 kyr before present ( BP) the imposed ice sheets over the Tibetan Plateau induces summer precipitation decreases strongly in North Africa and South Asia, and increases in Southeast Asia. The response of vegetation cover to the imposed ice sheets over the Tibetan Plateau is not synchronous in South Asia and in North Africa, showing an earlier and, hence, a more rapid decrease in vegetation cover in North Africa from 9 to 6 kyr BP while it has almost no influence on that in south Asia until 5 kyr BP. The simulation results suggest that the snow and glacier environment over the Tibetan Plateau is an important factor for Holocene climate variability in North Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia.