Members of a research team of China's second scientific expedition on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau pose for a group photo in southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, Sept. 13, 2017. Photo: Xinhua

The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, known as "the roof of the world," has entered its third environmental transformation in geological history - a groundbreaking concept first proposed by Chinese scientists on Wednesday.

The Second Qinghai-Tibet Scientific Expedition and Research team released its comprehensive integrated achievements in Lhasa, capital city of China's Xizang Autonomous Region, during which Yao Tandong, leader of the expedition and director of the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), announced the finding.

Global warming plus human activity is causing rapid warming and wetting, or the "dark greening," reported the state broadcaster China Central Television on Wednesday. The plateau has become a global amplifier of climate change, yet this transformation brings unprecedented opportunities: It is strengthening its water supply, enhancing carbon sinks and enriching biodiversity services.

Yao, who is also an academician of the CAS, explained that these changes provide unprecedented opportunities for the plateau to become more livable and suitable for development.

The Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program should seize the new opportunities presented by this third environmental transformation and push for high-quality development. It should fully integrate into the national strategy of "stability, development, ecology, and border consolidation and strengthening," and effectively organize major scientific expedition tasks for the new phase of the STEP, according to Yao.

According to the research team, their expedition has also provided full-process scientific support for national legislation on ecological protection of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, establishing legal safeguards for Asia's water tower, and built a comprehensive Earth system observation and early-warning platform serving major infrastructure and cross-border disaster prevention.

They also designed the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau National Park Cluster and optimized the protected area system, directly supporting the establishment of Qiangtang and Sanjiangyuan National Parks and verified the positive effects of major ecological restoration projects, consolidating the plateau's role as China's ecological security barrier.

Fang Xiaomin, another CAS academician and member of the team, told media that the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, together with the Arctic and Antarctic, forms a dynamic "Three Poles" linkage system. The rapid uplift of the northern plateau 8-9 million years ago triggered dust-arctic feedback that accelerated the formation of the Arctic ice sheet and modern permafrost. The future "Three Poles" research framework will become a new frontier for global Earth system science.

According to the Xinhua News Agency, China began its second scientific expedition to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in June 2017 to study changes in climate, biodiversity and environment over the past decades. The last expedition of similar scale was conducted in the 1970s. (Global Times)