The northern Qinghai-Xizang Plateau is a climatically sensitive zone influenced by monsoon and westerly winds. Thus the region is considered to contribute to the global climate change.

The researchers from the College of Earth and Environmental Sciences of Lanzhou University compared the wet-dry changes in the region during the mid-Holocene warm period, the medieval climate anomaly, the current warm period, and the future warm period from the perspective of paleoclimate.

They found that the mid-Holocene warm period was mainly affected by the orbit-controlled East Asian summer monsoon, and the region experienced warm and humid climate, according to the research article published in journal Science China: Earth Sciences.

And continued warming will lead to the expansion of the westerly belt and a gradually humid climate, the paper noted.

The future wet-dry changes will be more similar to the mid-Holocene warm period, according to the study. It also showed that despite of the warming and wetting of the northern margin of the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau caused by the global warming, the overall pattern of climate types in China would not be changed.

Climate change is generally cyclical, said Li Yu, professor at the Lanzhou University. And the dry and wet changes in the past warm period can provide a historical reference for weather prediction.