Remote Mountain Research Articles

Rombo by Esther Kinsky

Reviewed by: Rombo by Esther Kinsky Kayla Esther Ciardi ESTHER KINSKY Rombo Trans. Caroline Schmidt. London. Fitzcarraldo Editions. 2022. 232 pages. "EVERY LANDSCAPE," American geographer D. W. Meinig writes, "is an accumulation." Within it, "the past endures." Writers concerned with this relationship between landscape, place, the environment, and history/memory have underscored this inevitable accumulation in their works; W. G. Sebald will immediately come to mind. German writer Esther Kinsky too grapples with these themes throughout River (2018) and Grove (2020) and now in her latest novel, Rombo (2022). The landscapes in Kinsky's novels have always offered themselves up as sedimentary texts, where collective and individual traumas, memories, and histories are piled atop one another, laid to rest, later erased or deposited anew. Kinsky's peripatetic narrators are always attuned to the particularities of the landscape (urban and natural) before them, active wanderers participating in a process of remembrance. In Rombo, however, Kinsky's wayfaring narrator becomes a chorus of people affected by two natural disasters: the devastating earthquakes in May and September 1976 in northeastern Italy, in which a thousand lost their lives and tens of thousands were displaced. Buildings and churches turned to rubble. Ceilings collapsed in dust clouds of mortar. Well-worn paths were forever disrupted. Rombo takes its name from the phenomenon of il rombo: the deep, unfamiliar, and subterranean rumble felt and heard just prior to a quake. For the inhabitants of Friuli, this rombo haunts. It is an acoustic scar always lurking in their memories. Every rip of thunder is forever a reminder of this experience that "cannot be erased or redeemed, because it is beyond the categories of good and evil." Rombo alternates between the accounts of seven inhabitants in a remote Italian mountain village: Olga, Silvia, Gigi, Toni, Mara, Lina, and Anselmo. These accounts, which can be contradictory or inconsistent, read like interviews or oral histories, forming a kind of documentary chorus. This chorus of layered voices ultimately mirrors what Kinsky calls "the unreliable witness that is terrain." In their accounts, these characters reflect on a way of life in the middle of being lost. They are engaged in a process of reinscribing their memories into a completely changed landscape. Shafts, cavities, chasms, crevasses, and cracks in the earth become apparatuses of memory, remembering, and forgetting. Indeed, as the narrator notes of karstic limestone, rock comprised of living organisms, the landscape is "an accumulation of life lived and life's traces," always prone to "weathering" and "erasure." Even the structures, vehicles, and objects seem to carry this burden of accumulation—when toppled and crushed, Kinsky's descriptions conjure up corpses. Their loss is just as devastating. Indeed, for Lina, this landscape is her life, where she knows everything, "every stick and every stone." Every dwelling and every path. Kinsky's novel also incorporates the anecdotes of a nameless narrator—akin to ethnographic diary entries—about the land, its flora and fauna, and shared myths. The reader moves from the oral history of a villager to a careful examination of a moorland orchid to an investigation into the myth of Riba Faronika. Photographs and found objects also play an important role throughout Kinsky's work on memory, and Rombo is no exception. Each chapter is preceded by black-and-white images of a fresco discovered in the cathedral at Venzone—engravings of a bygone era from a people insistent on leaving behind a trace of themselves. Out of context, these heliographic images also remind one of the traces left behind on carbon copy paper—an apparatus of retaining the past's traces. The effect of these entries places these villagers' accounts, their stories and myths, and the minutiae of the region's flora and fauna on an equal plane. In this way, Rombo offers a kaleidoscopic portrayal of a landscape, inhabited by the traces of innumerable people, creatures, tales, and objects. If landscape is an accumulation of our histories and our memories—our identities, too—Rombo asks us to consider the trauma of what is lost, destroyed, and warped in seismic disasters that forever alter this mighty landscape which too can forget, and which can erase every trace of us. Rombo...

THE PRACTICE OF "WAITING FOR WATER" AND LOCAL ORDER IN WATER SHORTAGE MOUNTAIN VILLAGE IN WUMENG MOUNTAIN AREA

The practice of "waiting for water" （等水）in the mountain village in Wumeng mountain area (乌蒙山区) is a collective behavior derived from the special geographical, ecological and human space, which is the result of the comprehensive effect of the local climate conditions, water distribution and the livelihood model of tobacco cultivation. In the practice of "waiting for water", a set of order system followed by the local people is formed, which is related to the ethics and morality of the villages and the closeness between the people, and has become a cultural representation of great local social significance. It can be seen that the observation and discussion centered on water"can be used as the thinking direction of studying the localism in remote mountain villages.

Application of genetic and Spatially Explicit Capture-Recapture analyses to design adaptive feral cat control in a large inhabited island

Faunas of oceanic islands have a high proportion of endemic species which contribute to the uniqueness of island communities. Island species are particularly naïve and vulnerable to alien predators, such as cats (Felis catus). On large, inhabited islands, where the complete eradication of feral cat populations is not considered feasible, control represents the best management option to lower their detrimental effects on native fauna. The first objective of our study was to investigate population genetics of feral cats of Réunion Island. The second objective was to understand the space use of feral cats established near the breeding colonies of the two endemic and endangered seabirds of Réunion Island, the Barau’s Petrel (Pterodroma baraui) and the Mascarene Petrel (Pseudobulweria aterrima). We evaluated genetic diversity, population structure and gene flow amongst six groups of feral cats located at a maximum of 10 km from known petrel colonies. We also analysed the behaviour and space use of one of these feral cat groups using camera-trap data and Spatially Explicit Capture-Recapture (SECR) models. Genetic analyses revealed that feral cats were structured in three genetic clusters explained mostly by the island topography. Two clusters were observed at five sampled sites, suggesting high connectivity amongst these sites. The last cluster was found in only one site, suggesting high isolation. This site was a remote mountain area located in the vicinity of one of the main Barau’s Petrel colonies. The behavioural study was conducted on this isolated feral cat population. Mark recapture analysis suggested that feral cats were present at low density and had large home ranges, which is probably explained by reduced food availability. Finally, we make several recommendations for refining feral cat management programmes on inhabited islands.

Importance of precipitation and dust storms in regulating black carbon deposition on remote Himalayan glaciers

Black carbon (BC) can be transported over long distances and is an important trigger of climate warming and glacier melting at remote high mountains and polar regions. It is normally assumed that the variation of BC flux in remote regions is dominated by its emissions. However, after a comprehensive investigation of potential influencing factors on temporal variations of BC from ice cores of the Himalayas, this short communication shows that in addition to BC emissions, contributions from dust storms and precipitation are also important (up to 56% together) in regulating the variation of BC deposition flux and concentrations derived from remote Himalayan ice core measurements. Therefore, besides BC emissions, the influence of precipitation and BC transported by dust storms should also be considered to better quantify the lifetime and behavior of BC during its long-range transport from source to sink regions as well as to quantify the climatic effects of BC over remote Himalayan glaciers.

Multi-Temporal Analysis of Past and Future Land-Cover Changes of the Third Pole

In the past few decades, both natural and human influences have contributed to the unpredictable rates of land use and land-cover change (LUCC) in glacially devastated places. Monitoring and identifying the geographic and temporal land-cover changes and driving forces in this unique type of area may help to give the scientific basis needed to understand the effects of climate change and human activities on LUCC. The Third Pole is one such landscape that provides inevitable key ecosystem services to over 2 billion people in Asia. However, this important landscape is increasingly being threatened by the impacts of climate change. Policy and program responses to the Third Pole’s mounting socioeconomic challenges are inadequate and lack scientific evidence. Using the land-change model (LCM) and historical data from 1992 onwards, our study attempted to (i) detect the spatial patterns of land use and land-cover changes in the Third Pole from 1992 to 2020; and (ii) project them into 2060. Our analysis shows that the land use and land-cover types in the Third pole are undergoing changes. About 0.07% of the snow and ice have melted in the last three decades, indicating global warming. This melt has resulted in increasing water bodies (0.08%), especially as glacial lakes. This has significantly increased the risk of glacial outburst floods. Other key alpine land-cover types that decreased are bare land (0.6%) and agricultural land (0.05%). These land types represent important habitats for wild flora and fauna, grazing land for livestock, and food for nomads, and their loss will directly degrade ecological services and the health and wellbeing of the nomads. Land cover of forest, shrubs, and scanty vegetation have all increased by 0.3%, 0.02%, and 0.77%, respectively, inducing socio-ecological changes in the Third pole mountains. Further predication analysis showed that snow and ice, along with bare land, will continue to recede whereas forest, grassland, water bodies, shrubland, sparse vegetation, and settlement will increase. These results indicate the increasing impact of global warming that will continue to change the Third Pole. These changes have serious implications for designing adaptation and mitigation interventions in the mountains. We recommend more detailed research to investigate the underlying factors that are changing the Third Pole to develop policy and programs to help humans, livestock, and biodiversity adapt to the changes in these remote and harsh mountains. This will also help to mitigate the effects on downstream communities.

Tracing the origin of an imported HIV-1 sub-subtype A6 strain first identified in Zhejiang Province, China.

Human migration and mobility have been identified as key drivers of HIV dissemination among nations, which increases the problem of genetic diversity. Here, we report the near full-length genome of HIV-1 A6 identified in a female patient in the remote mountain area of Lishui, Zhejiang Province, which is the first time A6 has been reported in China. The near full-length genome was amplified with two large amplicons of 5.5kb and 3.7kb, and then target PCR products were sequenced by Sanger sequencing. The A6 strain was confirmed by the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) and a maximum-likelihood (ML) phylogenetic tree. The time to the most recent common ancestor (tMRCA) was inferred to be 2004 (95% HPD interval: 2003-2006). The sequence harbored the L74I mutation, which is a key characteristic genetic marker of A6. Combining the above evidence with epidemiological investigations, this A6 strain was determined to be from Ukraine, which was supported by phylogenetic analysis. This study identified a foreign imported strain, indicating a trend of increasing complication in the HIV-1 epidemic in Zhejiang, China.

Mountainous village relocation planning with 3D GIS virtual imaging space model and neural network

ABSTRACT China’s mountainous village relocation planning faces the problems of extensive survey ranges and high travel costs, and current planning still depends on traditional field visits and census data survey method. To improve efficiency and control costs, digital survey methods are proposed to support efficient data collection and produce data with accurate spatial reference . This research discusses a specific survey method for relocation planning using virtual imaging space modeling based on 3D GIS combined with neural network algorithm. A digital village model of a pilot village is established by oblique photography and WEBGIS technology, while the improved Mask R-CNN algorithm is adopted to identify and classify different buildings in the village. A relocation plan including the number of buildings in each class and the reclamation area is provided and the cost and value of the plan is fully evaluated. The results demonstrate that compared with the traditional survey method, the proposed method of digital survey can better address the issue of remote mountain areas, including provide more accurate, complete and sustainable information, make the surveying and planning more convenient, efficient and smart and improve the objectivity of village relocation planning.

Hybrid Satellite-Terrestrial Networks toward 6G: Key Technologies and Open Issues.

Future wireless networks will be required to provide more wireless services at higher data rates and with global coverage. However, existing homogeneous wireless networks, such as cellular and satellite networks, may not be able to meet such requirements individually, especially in remote terrain, including seas and mountains. One possible solution is to use diversified wireless networks that can exploit the inter-connectivity between satellites, aerial base stations (BSs), and terrestrial BSs over inter-connected space, ground, and aerial networks. Hence, enabling wireless communication in one integrated network has attracted both the industry and the research fraternities. In this work, we provide a comprehensive survey of the most recent work on hybrid satellite-terrestrial networks (HSTNs), focusing on system architecture, performance analysis, design optimization, and secure communication schemes for different cooperative and cognitive HSTN network architectures. Different key technologies are compared. Based on this comparison, several open issues for future research are discussed.

A student-driven multilevel approach for increasing energy sustainability of remote areas in the Emilia Romagna Apennines

This paper is aimed at discussing a series of energy sustainability solutions proposed by a master class of students in environmental engineering using analytical and visual collaborative tools. The activities described are part of the class “Sustainability and renewable sources” at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. Six groups of 3-4 students worked on six energy efficiency and sustainability projects chosen from a remote area of the Apennines in Emilia Romagna. The specificity of the case-study framework allowed the implementation of projects where different sustainability aspects are integrated using tools of transitional thinking: agro-food production, use of renewable energy sources, waste management and social integration were considered. Each group identified the key actors for each project, allowing them to approach sustainability from a multilevel perspective. Net Present Value analyses were applied to evaluate economic viability of each project. Photovoltaic power plants and boilers fueled with local wood are the main renewable energy source identified to promote energy sustainability in each project. As result, the combination of the six works creates a powerful tool to demonstrate possible best practices for remote mountain areas.

Hermitism and Impermanence: A Response to Nagasawa’s Argument on Transcendentalism in Medieval Japan

Nagasawa argues that only transcendentalism can constitute a potentially successful response to the problem of impermanence. In this review, I argue that Chōmei’s hermitism can be another realistic strategy to respond to it. Chōmei lived in a small house in the remote mountains and interacted with the surrounding nature. His lifestyle is considered a good example of reconciling one’s finite life with the impermanence of the world and human sufferings. I conclude that Nagasawa’s interpretation of hermitism might be one-sided.

Hermitism and Impermanence

Abstract. Nagasawa argues that only transcendentalism can constitute a potentially successful response to the problem of impermanence. In this review, I argue that Chōmei’s hermitism can be another realistic strategy to respond to it. Chōmei lived in a small house in the remote mountains and interacted with the surrounding nature. His lifestyle is considered a good example of reconciling one’s finite life with the impermanence of the world and human sufferings. I conclude that Nagasawa’s interpretation of hermitism might be one-sided.

“Rubbed Inflections of Litany and Myth”

Abstract Ciguapas are mythical creatures, typically represented as naked, comely females with uniquely backward feet. Such anatomy renders their path virtually untraceable. Legends suggest they inhabit remote mountains and forests in the Dominican Republic, preying on men. This essay steps away from the predatory archetype, formulating a theory of women’s loss and mourning through the motif of “forward backwardness” epitomized by the ciguapa’s feet. Using selections from the work of Dominican American poet Rhina P. Espaillat (b. 1932), the author outlines the feminist paradigm of ciguapismo, a fundamentally paradoxical mode for understanding how women endure in times of personal grief, awareness of aging, and under the shadow of sexual violence. It is also a form of environmental reckoning centered on collective care. Whether set in the Caribbean or the U.S. Dominican diaspora, ciguapismo in Espaillat’s poetry offers a critical resource, an imaginative faculty, and a liminal ontology for mapping transformative feminist intimacies against a backdrop of ever-encroaching human and environmental losses.

Spatial density estimate of the snow leopard, Panthera uncia, in the Central Tibetan Plateau, China.

Knowledge of large carnivore population abundance is essential for wildlife management and conservation, but these data are often difficult to obtain in inherently low-density species. In particular, the snow leopard, Panthera uncia, an enigmatic cat occupying remote mountains in Central Asia, has received insufficient assessments of its population abundance because of logistical and methodological challenges. Here, we aimed to develop a robust density estimation of snow leopards based on 81 days of camera trapping within a contiguous and previously unsurveyed 1950 km2 area of habitat on the Tibetan Plateau (Mayue Township, Shenzha County, Tibet Autonomous Region, China). By applying spatially explicit capture-recapture models, we produced an estimate of 1.40 (95%CI: 1.06-1.84) individuals per 100 km2 . Results also suggested sex-specific variation in the range of movement around activity centers, with male (N = 10, σ = 4.02) movement considerably greater than female (N = 8, σ = 1.84) movement. The findings can serve as a reliable baseline reference for assessing the population trends of this endangered felid species with future estimates. This study will provide context to contribute toward a better understanding of ecological factors shaping the distribution and abundance of snow leopards and the related conservation measures needed to sustain their long-term survival on the Tibetan Plateau.

Antarctic biodiversity predictions through substrate qualities and environmental DNA

Antarctic conservation science is crucial for enhancing Antarctic policy and understanding alterations to terrestrial Antarctic biodiversity. Antarctic conservation will have limited long‐term impacts in the absence of large‐scale biodiversity data, but if such data were available, it is likely to improve environmental protection regimes. To enable the prediction of Antarctic biodiversity across continental spatial scales through proxy variables, in the absence of baseline surveys, we linked Antarctic substrate‐derived environmental DNA (eDNA) sequence data from the remote Antarctic Prince Charles Mountains to a selected range of concomitantly collected measurements of substrate properties. We achieved this through application of a statistical method commonly used in machine learning. Our analysis indicated that neutral substrate pH, low conductivity, and certain substrate minerals are important predictors of the presence of basidiomycetes, chlorophytes, ciliophorans, nematodes, and tardigrades. A bootstrapped regression revealed how variations in the identified substrate parameters influence probabilities of detecting eukaryote phyla across vast and remote areas of Antarctica. We believe that our work will improve future taxon distribution modeling and aid in developing more targeted surveys of biodiversity conducted under logistically challenging conditions.

Water Transfer Redistributes Sediment in Small Mountain Reservoirs

Reservoir sedimentation management has become an important topic for large dams in the United States due to their historical design, current age, and increased environmental regulation. Less attention has been paid to small dams (hydraulic size < 0.01) in remote mountains with urgent sedimentation problems. In drier climates, such reservoirs may be frequently drained and trans-catchment flows routed over their sediment deposits heading from one mountain tunnel to another. This study asked an unexplored scientific question focusing on this special setting: how do different amounts of water transfers interact with different reservoir stages to affect sediment erosion and its redistribution in the backwater zone? Mindful timing and magnitude adjustment of water transfer, involving water diverted across watersheds by tunnels, through a reservoir were hypothesized to strategically redistribute sediment erosion for sites with water transfer/diversion facilities in the main channel. For a study site in the north-central Sierra Mountains of California, 2D hydrodynamic modeling revealed that sediment erosion within the backwater zone increased by > 100% when water transfer was maximized, involving a flow 12 times higher than mean annual discharge. With reservoir stage drawdown, the increment of sediment erosion was further increased by > 50% compared with water-transfer-only scenarios. The natural upstream inflow with daily flow occurrence of 5–25% was the optimal water transfer to avoid disturbing sediment. These results indicated that water transfer and stage drawdown optimization is a promising strategy to promote or abate redistribution of deposited sediment through a smaller reservoir.

Species richness and turnover patterns for tropical and temperate plants on the elevation gradient of the eastern Himalayan Mountains

Understanding species’ elevational distributions in mountain ecosystems is needed under climate change, but remote biodiverse mountain areas may be poorly documented. National Forest Inventories (NFIs) offer a potential source of data. We used NFI records from Bhutan to ask three questions about elevational richness patterns of Himalayan woody plant species. First, does the mean elevation for all species differ from those species whose entire elevational distribution is recorded in the survey? Second, how does the elevation of maximum richness differ when combining species originating from temperate and tropical regions vs. analyzing them separately? And third, do the highest species turnover rates adjoin elevation zones of maximum species richness? We used 32,198 species records from 1685 forest plots along a 7570 m gradient to map species elevation ranges. Species whose entire range was documented were those whose lowest records are located above 400 m, while bare rock defined all species’ upper limits. We calculated species richness and turnover using 400 m elevation bands. Of 569 species, 79% of temperate and 61% of tropical species’ elevation ranges were fully sampled within the NFI data. Mean elevation of tree and shrub species differed significantly for temperate and tropical species. Maximum combined species richness is from 1300 to 1700 m (277 species), differing significantly from maximum tropical (900–1300 m, 169) and temperate species richness (2500–2900 m, 92). Temperate tree turnover rate was highest in the bands adjoining its maximum species richness (2500–2900 m). But turnover for tropical trees was highest several bands above their maximum species richness, where turnover and decrease in richness interact. Shrub species turnover patterns are similar, but rates were generally higher than for trees. Bhutan’s NFI records show that woody plant species are arrayed on the Himalaya in part according to floristic origins, and that combining temperate- and tropical-originating floras for gradient-based studies such as species richness and turnover obscures actual elevational patterns. In addition, species whose ranges extend below the Himalayan elevation gradient should be accounted for in future studies that correlate climate and environment factors with elevational species richness patterns.

The human connection: First evidence of microplastics in remote high mountain lakes of Sierra Nevada, Spain

Microplastics have become one of the most serious global threats to animal and human health. While their presence has been documented in all Earth water ecosystems, including remote mountain lakes, the observation that the abundance of microplastics is largely different across nearby lakes has rarely been examined. As part of a citizen science initiative, this study analyzed for the first time the abundance of microplastics in the surface of 35 glacial lakes of Sierra Nevada National Park in Southern Spain with the objective of determining the local factors that control their abundance. First, we described the shape, size, color and nature of microplastics. Second, we tested whether the number of microplastics differed between basins and analyzed environmental and morphometrical features of lakes affecting their abundance. We found that microplastics were common in most lakes, with a maximum abundance of 21.3 particles per liter that akin to some of the most microplastic polluted lakes worldwide. Fragments were the predominant shape (59.7%) followed by fibers (38.8%) and very scarce spheres (1.5%). Microplastics were observed for all size-fractions, but the abundance of particles <45 μm was higher, what advocates for the use of low pore-size filters to prevent underestimation of microplastics. While the mean abundance of microplastics did not differ among basins, their quantity was related to the presence of meadows surrounding the lakes. This result indicates that while atmospheric transport of microsplastics may equally reach all basins, differences in microplastics among nearby-lakes has an anthropic origin caused by mountaineers who find lakes with ample meadows much more attractive to visit relative to barren lakes. The staggering number in these remote lakes, headwaters of rivers that feed drinking reservoirs, is a major concern that warrants further investigation and the strict compliance with waste management laws to reduce the harmful impacts of microplastic contamination.

Summer ecosystem structure in mountain lakes linked to interannual variability of lake ice, snowpack, and landscape attributes

AbstractMountain lakes experience interannual variability in spring snowpack and ice cover that can lead to differences in physical, chemical, and biological properties in the succeeding summer. Lake studies that capture extreme years of snow and ice would be useful to understand and anticipate effects of climate change, but such data are rare for remote mountain lakes. Monitoring of lakes in Olympic, North Cascades, and Mount Rainier National Parks from 2007 to 2018 allowed us to examine limnological differences along interannual and elevation‐driven climate gradients that included unusually high (2011–2012) and 100‐yr record low (2015) snowpack years. Years with lower spring snowpack had earlier ice‐out. Across lakes, our analysis suggested an average of 0.075°C lake warming per day of lost ice duration (0.525°C per week), giving rise to other ecosystem changes linked to temperature such as lower dissolved oxygen, higher total dissolved N, higher chlorophyll, and higher abundance of cladoceran zooplankton. Conversely, in years with higher snowpack and a shorter ice‐free season, lakes were colder and clearer (1 m deeper Secchi depth for every 1 m May snow water equivalent), with more dilute ions as well as lower algal biomass and zooplankton abundance. These results add to evidence that changes in snowpack or ice‐out dates alter mountain lake ecology through multiple processes associated with hydrology, terrestrial‐aquatic connection, water temperature, productivity, ion composition, and plankton communities.

Pleistocene northward thrusting of the Danghe Nanshan: Implications for the growth of the Qilian Shan, northeastern Tibetan Plateau

Understanding the tectonic history of the Qilian Shan provides significant insights into the growth pattern of the northern Tibetan Plateau. Due to the limitation of methodology and lack of detailed geological information over remote mountain ranges, there has been less information on the Pleistocene evolution of the southern Qilian Shan. Existing models for the Qilian Shan growth also fail to specify whether the southern Qilian Shan grew northward or southward during the late Cenozoic. Here we present provenance data on fieldwork paleocurrents, petrography, heavy mineral analysis, and zircon UPb ages from the Danghe valley between Danghe Nanshan and Yema Nanshan, southern Qilian Shan. Results show a ‘seesaw-like’ change of provenance from Yema Nanshan to the north during the early Pleistocene to Danghe Nanshan to the south, which suggests the northward thrusting of Danghe Nanshan. Integrated with previous studies, our inference of a Quaternary rapid exhumation of the southern Qilian Shan reinforces the argument of northward propagation of the southern Qilian Shan during the Pleistocene and suggests a complex growth pattern of the Qilian Shan, northeastern Tibetan Plateau.

Substantial Near-Surface Spring Ozone Enhancement due to Stratospheric Intrusion in the Northeastern Qinghai–Tibet Plateau, China

Stratospheric ozone intrusion plays an important role in affecting the tropospheric ozone concentrations in the troposphere through stratosphere to troposphere transport (STT). Nevertheless, there are very limited studies on the quantification of the effect. Focusing on a typical event on 9–12 May 2015, when STT occurs over the northeastern Qinghai–Tibet Plateau of China, the observations and reanalysis data indicate that STT is accompanied by high potential vorticity and low specific humidity. In order to quantify the extent to which the STT may elevate the ozone concentrations, an inert tracer is added to the boundary conditions of the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ), which is driven by the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The meteorological conditions simulated by WRF nicely reproduce the distributions of potential vorticity (PV) and water vapor in the upper troposphere. Through the physical processes of diffusion, advection, and dry and wet deposition, the ozone tracer concentrations simulated from CMAQ well capture the spatial propagation and evolution of stratospheric ozone intrusion over Qinghai–Tibet Plateau, warranting the confidence in interpreting the simulated results in quantifying the STT. The STT event indicates the near-surface ozone enhancement of approximately 10–20 ppbv covering half of Qinghai province, even spreading to a broader area of eastern China. For the typical remote mountain such as Waliguan, clear ozone enhancement is obtained over the lower level of the troposphere. The method used in this study is applicable to other regions as well, which can be applied in the future to detect the STT at a wider spatiotemporal scale and help the policymakers identify the ozone sources and make efficient strategies for the ozone pollution control.