Twentieth century warming reflected by the Malan Glacier borehole temperatures, northern Tibetan Plateau

Abstract

The Tibetan Plateau is a high-elevation area in Asia and contains the largest volumes of glaciers outside the polar regions. Reconstruction of the glacier surface temperature history in this area is crucial for better understanding of the process of climate change in the Tibetan Plateau. The Tikhonov regularization method has been used on borehole temperatures measured at Malan Glacier, located on the north Tibetan Plateau, to reconstruct the surface temperature history in the twentieth century. We found that the glacier surface temperature, which rose significantly after the 1960s, increased about 1.1°C over the last century. The warmest period occurred in the 1980s to the 1990s and the highest temperature variation could be 1.5°C to 1.6°C. The results were also compared with those of nearby instrumental temperatures by Wudaoliang meteorological station and the stable oxygen isotope ($${\delta ^{18}}O$$) from the Malan ice core.

Keywords

• glacier borehole temperatures
• heat conduction
• tikhonov regularization method