Week 6: Slow, yes, but progressing

This week's work mainly focus on environment of Tibetan pastures, more specifically, on climatic issues on the Plateau.

Though climate on a given area looks like a simple issue, it is not once you begin to ask questions.  My self-pointed objective on this sub-project is to understand a) what the climate(s) are like in Tibet; b) what the climates have been during the Holocene; and c) what are the implications of the historical and current climate on the pastoralism in the area?  Short-term climate events are also worth studying, which I have been doing since Thursday.

A main problem encountered during the literature review is very few materials on Tibet environment topic, and sadly a large unaccessible proportion in them.  Curse the Chinese database providers such as VIP and Wanfang Data!  There are many articles on climate change and Holocene climate histories out there, but I think their effects on pastoralism is what I need to independently and critically analyse.

The discussion with my supervisors are constructive, which I mentioned in another entry of the log.  One thing I strangely forgot to do is to draw a map of Tibet and my research area so that my audiences will understand the context better.  In the following 2 or 3 weeks I will finish this sub-project and a simple map as well.