Tracing earthquakes through lake sediments for better prediction

Abstract

<p>Intensive climatic extremes and frequent earthquakes, both in China and other regions, have captured public attention recently. The Tibetan Plateau at middle northern latitudes boasts large glacier and snow coverage, coupled with frequent tectonic activities, exerting profound yet poorly understood influences on zonal atmospheric motion and energy flux during interhemispheric coupling. This study proposes a comprehensive process-based approach involving multi-proxies focused on alpine lakes to illuminate the intricate interactions among tectonics, glacial processes and hydro-climatic variations. This perspective can enhance our understanding of the spatiotemporal diversity of the local-to-global hydro-climatic change pattern, particularly forced by Tibetan Plateau, and suggests to consider its combined summer thermal and tectonic forcing. Additionally, the approach provides unbiased geological data extracted from lakes, contributing to the optimization of hazard and climate models for better predictions of tectonics, abrupt and irreversible climate tipping points with confidence.</p>