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Over the past 40 years, the Tibetan Plateau has experienced rapid climate change, with its warming rate approximately 1.8 times higher than the global average, equivalent to half of the Arctic amplification during the same period. However, the contributions of anthropogenic aerosols and greenhouse gases to the warming of the Tibetan Plateau remain unclear, leading to substantial uncertainties in temperature change projections. Here, we present a diagnosis of the local energy budget over the Tibetan Plateau based on idealized perturbations in four climate forcing agents (CO2, CH4, SO4, and black carbon) Additionally, we assess the impact of radiative feedback processes such as albedo and water vapor to temperature change. The results indicate that the Tibetan warming amplification (defined as the ratio between the Tibetan Plateau and the global mean near-surface temperature change) is evident across all anthropogenic climate forcings. While the global near-surface temperature response normalized by effective radiative forcing is similar, there are substantial variations in Tibetan warming amplification among different climate forcing agents, ranging from 1.5 for CO2 perturbations to 2.9 for black carbon perturbations. For all perturbations, surface albedo feedback is identified as a crucial factor driving temperature changes over the Tibetan Plateau. Particularly for black carbon perturbations, the combined effect of surface albedo feedback and water vapor feedback contributes to the stronger Tibetan warming amplification than in the Arctic. This suggests that with the implementation of global emission reduction measures and the reduction of glacier and snow cover, the pace of exceptional warming might decelerate over the Tibetan Plateau.
Xu et al. (Sat,) studied this question.