Global Significance of Tibet

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Tibet Policy Institute 1 Venue: Tibet Museum 2014/09/12 By: Tempa Gyaltsen Zamlha TIBET POLICY INSTITUTE The Global Significance of Tibetan Plateau

Transcript of Global Significance of Tibet

Page 1: Global Significance of Tibet

Tibet Policy Institute 1

Venue: Tibet Museum2014/09/12

By: Tempa Gyaltsen Zamlha

TIBET POLICY INSTITUTE

The Global Significance of Tibetan Plateau

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•Area 2.5 million sq. km or

• close to 2% of earth’s land surface.

•Average elevation of 4500 m asl.

•World’s 100 highest peaks of

above 7000 m asl found here.

•14 great mountain ranges.

•Highest and largest Plateau

possibly ever existed.

•Rise of the Tibetan Plateau about

50 million years ago

Roof of the World

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•Source of Asia’s 6 greatest rivers

• Flowing into 9 most populated

nations

•Supporting almost half of world

population

•Drainage basin more than 6

million km2

•Hundreds other smaller stream

and tributaries also flow from

Tibet.

Water Tower of Asia

The SIX major Asian river are

Yangtze( Drichu), Yellow (Machu), Mekong(Zachu), Indus (Senge Khabab),

Brahmaputra (Yarlung Tsangpo), Salween River (Gyalmo Ngulchu.

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No.

Tibetan Name

CommonName

Length (KM)

Watershed Region

1 Drichu Yangtze 6380 Tibet and China

2 Machu Yellow 5464 Tibet, China

3 Zachu Mekong 4500 Tibet, China, Vietnam,

Laos, Cambodia,

Thailand

4 SengeKhabab

Indus 3100 Tibet,India and

Pakistan

5 GyalmoNyulchu

Salween 2800 Tibet, China, Burma,

Thailand

6 YarlungTsangpo

Brahmaputra 2900 Tibet, India and

Bangladesh

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•Home to 46,000 glaciers

•Covering area of

105,000 km2

•Largest source of accessible

fresh water

•Has largest number of glaciers

beyond south and north poles

•Glacial melting feeds many of

the south Asian greatest rivers.

•Its an island of snow

mountains in the sky which

acts as atmospheric cooler

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1Source: Tandong Yao et al, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE1580

•Plays a pivotal role in generating

and regulating Asian Monsoon.

•Temperature rise on the Plateau

twice more than global average

•Timing and intensity of Indian

monsoon depend on atmospheric

temperature on Tibetan Plateau

•Its also called as the barometer of

Asia

The Rain Maker

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•Increase in severe weather pattern causing frequent natural calamities

•unpredictable monsoon, leads to rise in food price &Social Instability.

•Rapid melting of glaciers, results in glacier lake outburst floods.

•Permafrost degradation and glacier retreat threaten the survival of great rivers of Asia.

•Increase of river volume in short term Resulting in floods but danger of rivers been dried up

in long run.

•Shortage of drinking water in most part of south east Asian countries.

The actual Impacts

Temperature rise on Tibetan Plateau twice more than global average

Present decade has been the hottest in last 2000 years

There has been continues rise of temperature and precipitation for the last 50 years

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Glacier Retreat གངས་རི་བྲག་རིར་འགྱུར་བ།

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རྩྭ་ཐང་བྱེ་ཐང་དུ་འགྱུར་བ།Desertification of Grassland

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གནས་ཚུལ་འབྲྱེལ་གཏུགས་ཀི་ཁ་བང་།

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