Q-TiP

Kipp-Punkte von Seesystemen in der ariden Zone Zentralasiens: Klimaindikatoren Qaidam und globale Klimamodelle

01/10/2016 to 30/09/2019

The integrated project Q-TiP investigates the control factors of tipping points in the hydrological systems of the arid zone in Central Asia, based on climatic and other processes, in the geological past and projected to the presence and future. The project partner Tübingen contributes to the question of what preserves large lake systems in this arid zone across long periods and what controls tipping points leading to their extinction. As the underlying hypothesis we test a climatically controlled regional water recycling on the timescale of glacial/interglacial cycles in the past 2-3 million years. We approach this question from two sides: (a) Analyses of paleoclimate proxies in sedimentary sequences of the former mega-lake in the Qaidam Basin at the NE of the Tibetan Plateau and (b) sensitivity analyses by climate modelling.