The 6th TPE Workshop Held in Ohio/USA

The 6th Third Pole Environment (TPE) Workshop was successfully held in Columbus, OH, USA in May 16-18, 2016. More than 70 scientists from 14 countries of China, USA, Germany, Nepal, India, Canada, Italy, France, Netherlands, U.K., Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sweden and Switzerland, joined together to better understand the coupled biogeochemical and social systems in and around the Third Pole.

The workshop included 49 oral and 13 poster presentations, which reveals latest research findings in 8 research areas: 1) Ecosystems, 2) Glacial fluctuation, 3) Human impacts on and interplay with third pole environment, 4) Asian Monsoon, 5) Climate changes from decadal to millennial time scales, 6) Hydrological observation and modeling on the Third Pole, 7) Mechanisms of third pole environment changes, 8) Geohazards and Earth System .  A poster session is specially organized for master and PhD candidates to share their research findings, which allowed the young scientists to enrich their experiences on scientific presentation and communication. An active discussion was conducted to recognize the key scientific issues and TPE future activities on four topics: long-term climate changes, ecological processes, hydrological modeling and glacier changes.  Also high on the workshop’s agenda was the opening of the U.S. TPE office. The vice-president of The Ohio State University, Prof. Caroline C. Whitacre formally announced the opening of this office. As the first TPE office outside the Third Pole region, the U.S. office will focus on facilitating the TPE program and cultivating young scientists. 

The 6th TPE workshop is jointly convened by TPE co-chairs: Prof. Tandong Yao, director of the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research/CAS, Prof. Lonnie G. Thompson, distinguished professor at Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center and the School of Earth Sciences/OSU, and Prof. Volker Mosbrugger, director general of the Senckenberg Nature Research Society, Germany. The workshop is co-sponsored by Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), The Ohio State University and CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences.

The next TPE workshop will be taken place in China in 2017.

The three TPE co-chairs and the vice president of The Ohio State University

The 6th TPE WORKSHOP

The workshop in session