Unexpected climate impacts on the Tibetan Plateau: Local and scientific knowledge in findings of delayed summer

Abstract

Knowledge of climate change and its impacts can facilitate adaptation efforts. However, complex system dynamics, data scarcity, and heterogeneity often generate both contradictory findings and unexpected climate change impacts. Here we present local ecological knowledge of climate and ecological change in central Tibet to support the finding of delayed summer on the Tibetan Plateau, a finding that has been subject to vigorous, ongoing debate based on Western scientific data. Tibetans who actively herd on a daily basis and are located at higher elevations were most likely to notice changes in seasonality, reported as later start of summer and green-up, and as delayed and shortened livestock milking season. Local meteorological data, indigenous observations of higher snowlines and long-term animal number data suggest that a regional warming trend, rather than land use change, may underlie the delayed phenology trends. We demonstrate that local ecological knowledge can reveal counter-intuitive outcomes and help resolve apparent contradictions through its strengths in situations of high variability, ability to integrate over a range of variables and time scales, and operation outside of Western scientific logic. This suggests local knowledge does not exist to be confirmed or disproved by Western science, but rather can also advance Western science and help contribute to its debates. It is precisely points of apparent contradiction within and between knowledge systems that are most productive for more extensive inquiry. Future research on climate change, and climate adaptation policy-making, will benefit from careful, contextual dialog with local observations, focusing on observable biophysical phenomena that are affected by temperature and precipitation and that are important to livelihoods.