Carbon Balance of Grasslands on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau under Future Climate Change: A Review

Abstract

Climate change has brought significant impacts upon the natural ecological environment and human social development. The future carbon balance study has become an important part of research on the impacts of climate change. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) is a key area for studying climate change. Grassland, as a typical ecosystem of the QTP, embodies the sensitivity of the plateau to the climatic environment, so the carbon balance of grassland under future climate change conditions is important for studying global change. This paper reviewed the literature on carbon balance projection of grassland on the QTP under climate change. Two types of research methods were used to analyze and discuss the studies’ results, including experimental scenario projection and model projection. The experiment projected that appropriate temperature and moisture could enhance the carbon sink capacity of a grassland ecosystem, where moisture played a leading role. The model projection results showed that the carbon balance under different spatial and temporal scales were different. Although both can project the carbon balance of the study area, there are still some uncertainties. In addition, this research area should also consider the influence of human activity and plateau pikas to more accurately project the future carbon balance.