On the afternoon of June 28, 2019, the IEECAS team of The Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition started off, undertaking the task of the “Evolution and synergy of westerly-monsoon”.

The expedition team (IEECAS)

2019 Expedition route of IEECAS team (China part) (IEECAS)

Director Liu Yu delivered a speech on behalf of Expedition team. He expressed his pleasure that the Institute could undertake the task of the “Evolution and synergy of the westerly-monsoon” in The Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition. He asked the entire team to “Remain true to our original aspiration and keep our mission firmly in mind", overcome all difficulties, and fulfill the task of the scientific expedition.

Director LIU Yu at the Ceremony (IEECAS) 

Prof.AN Zhisheng also attended the ceremony. He said that although IEECAS has done a lot of work in the west part of China for so many years, there are still unclear issues. In this scientific expedition, he asked the team to pay attention to a scientific problem that he had always been concerned about: the source of precipitation in the west,does itcome from the Arctic Ocean, the westerly wind, or the monsoons. Prof.An also presented the IEECAS Expedition flag to the team leader Prof. SUN Youbin.

Prof. AN Zhisheng presents flag to team leader Prof. SUN Youbin (IEECAS) 

The theme of the Expedition is "Evolution and synergy of the westerly-monsoon". In the next five years, IEECAS expedition team will systematically investigate and collect samples of of loess, stalagmites, lakes and marshes, tree rings and other materials overstudy areas of the Tibetan Plateau. Based on high precision chronology and high resolution multi-disciplinary environmental indicators, the team will reconstruct the variation series of monsoon and westerly climate at different time scales in the past 130,000 years. This research will provide scientific basis for predicting the future trend of monsoon and westerly evolution and its impact on water resources in the Plateau.