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A research team led by Prof. Wu Qingbai from the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources (NIEER) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has identified important non-temperature environmental factors contributing to permafrost degradation on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

The findings, in Nature Communications, provide new scientific evidence to support ecological protection and engineering safety in permafrost regions under global warming.

Permafrost on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the world's largest continuous alpine permafrost, is increasingly affected by climate warming. Degradation disrupts carbon, water, and nutrient cycles, while also threatening the stability of infrastructure and ecosystem services across the plateau.

In this study, the researchers showed that permafrost degradation on the plateau accelerated between 2001 and 2020. The rate of active layer thickening increased from 45 ± 15 cm per decade during 2001–2010 to 86 ± 30 cm per decade during 2011–2020, while near-surface permafrost temperature rose from 0.15 ± 0.16°C per decade to 0.38 ± 0.22°C per decade.

Using data from 55 long-term in situ monitoring sites, the researchers conducted a quantitative analysis of degradation drivers. Results showed that air temperature explained less than 20% of the observed changes, while non-temperature factors such as precipitation, vegetation cover, wind speed, air pressure and the height of the 0℃ isotherm together accounted for about 45%. They also noted that ignoring non-temperature factors would overestimate the contribution of temperature.

"Our findings highlight the crucial role of non-temperature variables in modulating permafrost responses to climate change, which is important for refining projections of carbon, nutrient, and water cycling and for safeguarding critical infrastructure on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and other permafrost regions," said Prof. Wu.

The study complements and extends previous research that emphasized the role of temperature, offering a more complete picture of permafrost dynamics under global warming.