The increasing climate suitability for human habitation on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau

Abstract

Global climate change is a pressing environmental challenge. Climate-induced migration highlights the severe impact of unsuitable climatic conditions. However, current research methods are limited in their ability to assess climate suitability for residents in high-altitude areas. In this study, we assess climate suitability across the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau from 1979 to 2018 and project future changes using four different Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) climate scenarios by constructing the Climate Suitability Index (CSI). The findings reveal a notable increase in CSI from 0.32 to 0.36 from 1979 to 2018. The primary factors contributing to the increased climate suitability are increasing annual mean precipitation (61.42 %) and decreasing solar radiation (17.22 %) from 1979 to 2018. Furthermore, the study forecasts a continued enhancement of climate suitability across all SSP scenarios, with SSP585 demonstrating the greatest improvement, followed by SSP370, SSP245, and SSP126. Although low oxygen levels at high altitudes remain a challenge, the overall improvement in climate suitability offers hope for people living at high altitudes to cope with climate change.

Keywords

Climate suitability / Qinghai-Xizang Plateau / Climate Suitability Index (CSI) / Climate change / CMIP6

Data availability

All the data that support this study can be freely accessed using the websites described below. The annual mean temperature, annual mean precipitation, wind speed (instantaneous near the surface [10 m]), shortwave radiation, and specific humidity from 1979 to 2018 on which this article is based are available in Yang et al. (2019). For more information, please visit https://data.tpdc.ac.cn/zh-hans/data/7a35329c-c53f-4267-aa07-e0037d913a21. The sunshine duration was obtained by interpolation at 105 weather stations near the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau and the data of weather stations could be obtained from China Meteorological Science Data Sharing Service Website. For more information, please visit https://data.cma.cn/en/? . The weather data from four future SSP scenarios (SSP126, SSP245, SSP370, and SSP585) on which this article is based are available in Thrasher et al. (2022). For more information, please visit https://www.nccs.nasa.gov/services/data-collections/land-based-products/nex-gddp-cmip6. The Population data from 1985 to 2015 on which this article is based are available in Schiavina et al. (2022). For more information, please visit https://human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu/download.php?ds=pop. The Population data from 2030 to 2100 (10 years is a gap) under different SSPs on which this article is based are available in Chen et al. (2020). For more information, please visit https://springernature.figshare.com/collections/Provincial_and_gridded_population_projection_for_China_under_shared_socioeconomic_pathways_from_2010_to_2100/4605713.

Code availability

This paper primarily utilizes Python for data analysis and calculations. The codes will be published on Figshare (https://figshare.com/s/26c455803d243c15be47) and along with the climate suitability maps on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau (https://figshare.com/s/4f82efa2ec238f217fcf).

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Jinhao Liu: Writing - review & editing, Writing - original draft, Software, Resources, Methodology. Zhongbao Xin: Writing - review & editing, Validation, Supervision, Project administration.

Declaration of competing interests

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research (STEP) program (Grant No. 2019QZKK0608). We thank reviewers for their helpful comments on the manuscript.

Supplementary materials

Supplementary material associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.geosus.2025.100393.

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