Shichang Kang

State Key Laboratory of Cryosphere Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, China

Aerosols from South Asia directly enhance glacier melt over the Tibetan Plateau. While the transboundary transport of aerosols from South Asia towards the Tibetan Plateau has been extensively investigated from a tropospheric perspective, less focus has been given to the stratospheric dimension. Here we examined the impact of the sudden stratospheri...

Recent climate dynamics denote patterns and variations in climatic conditions and associated cryospheric changes in the Pamir region, affecting downstream ecosystems and communities. The present investigation describes changes in Baralmos glacier and supraglacial lakes, along with related hazards, using meteorological observations, reanalysis produ...

Transport of exogenous anthropogenic mercury (Hg) is an important source of Hg pollution in the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and its downstream water ecosystems, but the origins and contributions of Hg sources remain uncertain. Here, we investigate the concentrations and isotopic compositions of gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) at four rural sites in the TP...

South Asia is a global hotspot of air pollution gaining attention due to its severe implications, in which atmospheric mercury (Hg) could cause detrimental health effects in metropolitan areas. In this study, first-time year-round (January – December 2019) mean total gaseous mercury (TGM) concentration at Kathmandu, Nepal - a sub-tropical city in S...

Northwest China is much more sensitive to climate warming, and the climate has varied rapidly from warm and drought to warm and humid conditions. In addition, due to the complex terrain of Northwest China, the methods and parameterization schemes of different CMIP6 models, these models are mostly applied to arid areas in Northwest China or Central...

Precipitation plays a crucial role in the water cycle of Northwest China. Obtaining accurate precipitation data is crucial for regional water resource management, hydrological forecasting, flood control and drought relief. Currently, the applicability of multi-source precipitation products for long time series in Northwest China has not been thorou...

A field survey was conducted in the central Tibetan Plateau (Nam Co) in China for high-time resolution measurements of gaseous elemental mercury (GEM), gaseous oxidized mercury (GOM), and particle-bound mercury (PBM). Average concentrations (± 1 SD) of GEM, PBM, and GOM from November 2014 to March 2015 were 1.11 ± 0.20 ng m⁻³, 50.8 ± 26.5 pg m⁻³, a...

The gravity recovery and climate experiment (GRACE) satellites offer significant advantages for monitoring changes in terrestrial water storage (TWS), and the data are widely used in hydrological drought research. This study analysed TWS variations from 2003 to 2022 in Northwest China (NWC) at different spatiotemporal scales. We utilized the water...

Glaciers in the Pamir region are experiencing rapid melting and receding due to climate change, which has a significant implication for the Amu Darya river basin. Predominantly, surging glaciers, which undergo unpredictable advances, are potentially leading to the obstruction of high-altitude river channels and also glacial lake outburst floods. Th...

Understanding the origins of aerosol iron (Fe) is crucial for comprehending its influence on Earth's climate and the global biogeochemical cycle. Fe isotopes (δ56Fe) serve as a distinctive and effective tool for constraining aerosol Fe sources and transport routes. In this work, we comprehensively compiled a global dataset (n = 195) of recent aeros...

Fragmented surfaces and harsh environments have always been the main obstacles hindering observation works of glaciers in central Tibetan Plateau (TP). The advent of Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS) technology offers a potential revolution in this context. While TLS has been effectively applied to smaller glaciers in the Alps and Tianshan, this stud...

Microplastics (MPs) become ubiquitous in soil and are an environmental and public health concern worldwide. However, the status of MPs in natural and farmland soils in remote areas remains poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the characteristics of MPs in natural and farmland soils along two transects in the Qilian Mountains of the nor...

Atmospheric aerosol in the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and its surroundings has attracted significant scientific interest in recent decades due to its notable impacts on regional climatic and cryospheric changes, ecological and environmental security, and the hydrological cycle. However, our understanding of the atmospheric aerosol in this remote region i...

Subglacial hydrology directly impacts glacier motion, but few studies have investigated the connections between ice speed and water input on regional scales. Here, we analyze the correlation of glacier surface speed and runoff for 77 glaciers ≥3 km2 (~3070 km2) on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, within and between seasons from 2015-2019. Most correlat...

The climate comprises an externally forced component and internal variability within the climate system. This variability arises from interactions among climate subsystems, significantly mpacting climate change, particularly over the Tibetan Plateau (TP). Therefore, understanding the mechanisms governing TP temperature responses to internal variabi...

In the current study, cryoconite samples were collected from six glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau to analyze n -alkanes and n -alkenes. The findings revealed that the concentrations of n -alkanes and n -alkenes varied from 40.1 to 496.1 μg g ⁻¹ and from 4.6 to 13.8 μg g ⁻¹ , respectively. The carbon preference index of the long-chain n -alkanes rang...

Carbonaceous particles play a crucial role in atmospheric radiative forcing. However, our understanding of the behavior and sources of carbonaceous particles in remote regions remains limited. The Tibetan Plateau (TP) is a typical remote region that receives long-range transport of carbonaceous particles from severely polluted areas such as South A...

The present study highlights the water quality of two important Ramsar sites of western Nepal (Ghodaghodi and Rara lakes) in terms of irrigation use. Based on land use patterns and location accessibility, 13 sites in Ghodaghodi and 18 in Rara were considered and the samplings were performed in the pre-monsoon and post-monsoon seasons. Different phy...

The Tibetan Plateau (TP) directly heats the middle tropospheric atmosphere, and accurate simulation of its surface temperature is of great concern for improving climatic prediction and projection capabilities, but climate models always exhibit a cold bias. Based on the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) models and in-situ observa...

Recent research on the Himalayan cryosphere has increasingly been focused on climate uncertainty and regional variations, considering features such as glacier recession, lake expansion, outburst floods, and regional hazards. The Bhilangana river basin, located in the central Himalayas, is predominantly characterized by increased elevation-dependent...

Assessing the relative importance of climate change and human activities is important in developing sustainable management policies for regional land use. In this study, multiple remote sensing datasets, i.e. CHIRPS (Climate Hazard Group InfraRed Precipitation with Station Data) precipitation, MODIS Land Surface Temperature (LST), Enhanced Vegetati...

The Third Pole (TP) is the largest alpine mountains on the Earth. Its cryosphere is shrinking and collapsing and the hydrosphere has subsequently changed under the warming climate in recent decades, potentially affecting the biogeochemical cycle. In particular, the carbon cycle has undergone dramatic changes, primarily because of the alterations be...

Investigating the characteristics and transformation of water-soluble carbonaceous matter in the cryosphere regions is important for understanding biogeochemical process in the earth system. Water-soluble carbonaceous matter is a heterogeneous mixture of organic compounds that is soluble in aquatic environments. Despite its importance, we still lac...

Atmospheric pollution has detrimental effects on human health and ecosystems. The southern region of the Himalayas, undergoing rapid urbanization and intense human activities, faces poor air quality marked by high aerosol loadings. In this study, we conducted a two-year PM10 sampling in the suburban area (Godavari) of Kathmandu, a representative me...

The chemical composition of meltwater-draining Himalayan glacierized basins reflects the dominance of carbonic acid in weathering of silicate and carbonate minerals, yet the role of sulfuric acid-mediated reactions in the mineral weathering and ionic release is still unclear. Here, we present a long-term study (1992–2018) of chemical weathering cha...

Black carbon (BC) exerts potential effects on climate, especially in the Tibetan Plateau (TP), where the cryosphere and environment are very sensitive to climate change. The TP saw a record-breaking aerosol pollution event during the period from 20 April to 10 May 2016. This paper investigates the meteorological causes of the severe aerosol polluti...

Tibetan Plateau (TP) is known as the water tower of Asia, and glaciers are solid reservoirs that can regulate the amount of water. Black carbon (BC), as one of the important factors accelerating glacier melting, is causing evident environmental effects in snow and ice. However, a systematical summary of the potential sources, analytical methods, di...

Atmospheric aerosol in the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and its surroundings has received widely scientific concern in recent decades owing to its significant impacts on regional climatic and cryospheric changes, ecological and environmental securities, and hydrological cycle. However, our understanding on the atmospheric aerosol in this remote region is h...

Solid precipitation is not only the main supply for glacier mass, but also exerts an important influence on surface albedo and intensifies glacier melting. However, precipitation type observation is very scarce in the high alpine glaciers, which limits the precise simulation of glacier mass balance. This study assessed three discrimination methods...

Natural processes and human activities impact mercury (Hg) pollution in rivers. Investigating the individual contributions and interactions of factors affecting variations in Hg concentrations, particularly under climate change, is crucial for safeguarding watershed ecosystems and human health. We collected 381 water samples from China's Weihe Rive...

Exploration of the spatiotemporal variability in precipitation gradients (PGs) is important for understanding the spatial differences in precipitation and optimizing hydrological process simulations. Here, the spatiotemporal distribution of precipitation and PG was analyzed in the Tianshan and Qilian Mountains based on national meteorological stati...

The climate change impacted glacio‐hydrological regime and thus the availability of water resources in arid region of Central Asia. The effects of climate change in the magnitude or seasonality of regional glacier runoff were still poorly understood in Central Asia. In this study, the glacier runoff, components of glacier runoff, equilibrium line a...