5,5,5,10,3,12,- 1SKLab-DeepMinE, MOEKLab-OBCE, School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China (cfcf.chengfeng@gmail.com)
- 2Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
- 3Institute of Geosciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
- 4National Key Laboratory of Arid Area Ecological Security and Sustainable Development, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China
- 5School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds; LS2 9JT, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds, UK
- 6State Key Laboratory of Earthquake Dynamics, Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration, Beijing, China
- 7Yunnan Key Laboratory of Earth System Science, Yunnan University, Kunming 650500, China
- 8Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA
- 9Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology, Nevada Geosciences, University of Nevada, Reno, USA
- 10Géosciences Rennes–UMR CNRS 6118, Univ Rennes, CNRS, Rennes, France
- 11Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Université Paris Diderot, UMR 7154 CNRS, Paris, France
- 12Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences, Northumbria University, NE1 8ST, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
- 13School of Geography and Ocean Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
- 14Key Laboratory of Western China’s Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 73000, China
As the largest elevated plateau on Earth, the Tibetan Plateau has played a pivotal role in shaping both global and regional climate as well as mammalian dispersal. Yet how paleoclimate and biome shift in and around the Plateau responded to Plio–Pleistocene cooling, marked by a ~3–4 °C global temperature drop at ~2.7 million years ago (Ma) and the intensification of Northern Hemisphere glaciation, remains to be further investigated. Here we integrate novel climate and biome simulations with new carbonate stable and dual clumped isotope analyses to reconstruct past climate and ecosystems across the Tibetan Plateau and its surroundings. Our clumped-isotope temperatures indicate warmer mean annual air temperatures prior to 2.7 Ma, supporting a permafrost-free northern Plateau under climates warmer than today. Combined with climate modeling and global permafrost distribution, these results suggest that under conditions similar to the mid-Pliocene Warm Period (3.3–3.0 Ma), ~60% of alpine permafrost, containing ~85 petagrams of carbon—may have been vulnerable to thaw, compared to only ~20% of circumarctic permafrost. This implies that up to ~25% of global permafrost carbon, and associated permafrost–climate feedbacks, could originate in alpine regions. In addition, our results show the emergence of cold steppe–tundra habitats suitable for woolly rhinoceroses during Plio–Pleistocene cooling, forming plateau–circumarctic dispersal corridors. The ~3–4 °C cooling around 3.0–2.7 Ma along these corridors coincided with ~8 °C cooling on the Plateau. A >30% decline in plateau habitat suitability, alongside a ~23-fold corridor expansion, points to temperature decline as the primary driver of poleward megafaunal dispersal. Taken together, our findings highlight the amplified temperature sensitivity of high-elevation regions and underscore the central role of global temperature change in shaping the past, present, and future dynamics of cold-adapted mammals across the cryosphere.
How to cite: Cheng, F., Mulch, A., Xiao, W., Meijer, N., Haywood, A., Wang, L., Li, X., Tindall, J., Garzione, C., Fiebig, J., Zuza, A., Hill, D., Dolan, A., Hunter, S., Dupont-Nivet, G., Jolivet, M., Bernecker, M., Salzmann, U., Lu, H., and Nie, J.: Plio–Pleistocene Paleoclimate Insights into Alpine Permafrost Stability and Ice-Age Megafaunal Dispersal in Asia, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-21415, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-21415, 2026.
