A Combined Rock Magnetic and Meteorological Investigation of the Precipitation Boundary Across the Tibetan Plateau

Abstract

The Tibetan Plateau (TP) and its adjacent areas are located in the transitional zone of the high and cold mountainous regions, monsoonal humid regions, and arid regions of Central Asia. The TP is the highest plateau on Earth, with a complex terrain of plateaus, broad basins, high mountains, arid deserts and lakes. Due to its unique geographical location, the TP is influenced by the East Asian and Indian summer monsoons, and the Westerlies circulation (Chen et al., 2019;Machalett et al., 2008). Characterizing and interpreting the precipitation and temperature gradients across this vast region can potentially improve our knowledge of the effects of topography and atmospheric circulation on regional climatic patterns and the origins of dust outbreaks in the Asian interior. However, because of the sparse distribution of meteorological stations in the region, our understanding of the climatic gradients across the TP relies mainly on numerical simulations or satellite data. The climatic boundary (i.e., of precipitation and temperature) across the TP is still debated (

Magnetic Properties of the Ganzi Loess and Their Implications for Precipitation History in the Eastern Tibetan Plateau Since the Last Interglacial

“…Studies on surface soil samples have found a positive correlation between pedogenic magnetite/maghemite content and MAP in the TP and its adjacent areas (Ning et al., 2021; Zan et al., 2020). A preliminary magnetic susceptibility study of modern topsoil in the WSP has revealed a close relationship between χ fd % and precipitation (H. Chen et al., 2018).…”

“…The rate of ultrafine magnetite precipitates depends on the drying‐wetting cycles and the average moisture of the soil, which is used to define the magnetite enhancement proxy (Orgeira et al., 2011). Modern soil magnetic studies on the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP) and its adjacent areas have found that the pedogenic ferromagnetic minerals are closely related to precipitation (Gao et al., 2018; Ning et al., 2021; Song et al., 2014).…”