Recent warming as recorded in the Qinghai-Tibetan cryosphere

Abstract

Oxygen-isotope ratios ( δ 18 O) measured on ice cores on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, China, increased by 1.2-2.2‰ from the 1960s to the 1990s. Measurements of the δ 18 O content of precipitation and the simultaneous air temperatures needed to compute the temperature increase corresponding to the increase in δ 18 O are currently made at the Delingha Meteorological Station, but the amount of data is not yet sufficient to obtain a reliable result.