Last glacial snowlines in the Tibetan Plateau: An argument against an extensive coalescing icesheet

Two opposing theories are circulating with regard to the extent of the Last Glacial ice cover in the Tibetan Plateau. One says that only less than 20% of plateau was covered with ice, and another insists that the plateau be completely covered with an extensive coalescing icesheet. The extent of the ice cover is thought to be significant in shaping global climatic systems, and a further discussion on this issue may help to understand the earth's surface feedback mechanisms to the global climates. This paper focuses on the Last Glacial snowline reconstruction and uses the reconstructed snowline to argue against the existence of an extensive coalescing icesheet. The reconstructed Last Glacial snowlines suggest that the snowlines dropped 500-700m in the western and northern marginal mountains and about 1000 m in the southern and eastern marginal mountains of the Tibetan Plateau. However, the magnitude of the snowline dropping decreases dramatically towards the interior of the plateau, from 300-400m in those mountains adjacent to the marginal mountains to about 100m in the driest area in the interior. This means that the snowlines were too high and associated glaciers were too limited to extend to the vast intermountainous basins. To be blamed are weakened summer monsoons and lowered condensation elevations, both of which were probably responsible for not bringing in an adequate amount of precipitation into the interior for developing an extensive coalescing icesheet. The relatively high radiation in these relatively low latitudes could be a major negative force to prevent the snow and ice from forming a coalescing icesheet. In contrast, the enhanced plateau blockade to the monsoons may have helped to significantly lower the snowlines and expand the glaciers in the outer slopes of the southern and eastern marginal mountains. The westerlies may have greatly helped those glaciers in the western and northern marginal mountains.