Cold and Arid Regions Research
Cold and Arid Regions Research focuses on the exploration of the land surface process, structure and interaction in cold and arid regions, the study of the regional environmental changes and global climate changes, and the affect on these regions of important engineering projects and sustainable development.China’s Cold and Arid Region research has a long-term history of international scientific cooperation between scientists of the US, Russia and China. Since the 1960’s, the Institute for Cold and Arid Regions Environmental & Engineering Research (CAREERI) has established cooperative relationships for joint research and academic exchange with 60 scientific institutions and universities from more than 20 countries, including the US, Canada, Kazakhstan and Nepal. More than 1,000 scientists have joined in the bilateral academic exchange, and CAREERI has sponsored 10 international conferences in the recent years.
Currently, CAREERI has teamed with the Russian Federation to study the environmental impact the Qinghai-Xizang Railway has on permafrost. Additionally, CAREERI cooperates with Japan and the US in the project of HEIHE River Basin Management, Simulation and Models Integration Research.
One of CAREERI’s primary climate studies involves the “Long-term dynamic of southern Monsoons and Hydro-Climatological Regime of The Southeastern Tibetan Alpine Basins.” CARERRI collaborates on this research project with the University of Idaho (U of I) of the US.
Additionally, CAREERI worked together in permafrost area with United Institute of Permafrost Research and Natural Resources Development Siberian Branch, Institute of Earth Cryosphere, Russian Academy of Sciences and Department of Geology at Moscow University. Although during past years, the CAREERI established cooperative relationships for joint research and academic exchange with many countries in the world, the GLORIAD network can change some of the traditional exchange methods, provide scientists with a new communication environment and other improvements.
Cryosphere, Desert, Desertification, plateau atmosphere and water-soil-atmosphere-ecological for global change are the key areas of research in the global change research project. The research of Tibet-Plateau is very important for global climatic change. The Institute has established two data mirror sites: 1) WDC for paleoclimatology; 2) WDC for glaciology and geocryology, which are used to support the research project. In this research project, GLORIAD can provide the research community with a collaboration work platform. It can also prompt the scientific research results to be shared between scientists in the US, Russia, China and other countries. This is a long-term research project that needs a large number of scientists from many countries to cooperate together.
GLORIAD and the HEIHE River Basin Global Climate Change Research Project
New research of HEIHE river basin model involves water-ecological-economic-management modeling about upper, middle and lower river region research. A high performance computer will be needed to compute massive volumes of data, which comes from our field observation station, as well as from NASA, Europe, Japan and other countries. It will need large network bandwidth to transfer a mass of remote sensing spatial data and GIS data. This project needs GLORIAD support to disseminate the massive volume of valuable data (1TB) of cold and arid resources and environment research through the field observational experiments and projects co-operation and exchange also need GLORIAD support to share. As this project expands, CAREERI estimates the data volume is increasing more than 100G per year, and the data transfers occur with more frequency.
In this research project, the CAREERI brings in an open geographic modeling environment, the Spatial Modeling Environment (SME) from the Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Maryland, And other modeling tools of Module Modeling System (MMS) from the U.S. Geological Survey. The CAREERI will collaborate with the US on this research plan through a train of MMS in this year. The GLORIAD network can strengthen and facilitate this collaboration and exchange between the peoples of the US, Russia and China and other neighbor countries.
The study plan:
The Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute Network Status, CAS
A high efficient LAN switch connects our 7 research divisions, 3 laboratories with a 1000 Mbps ethernet. A high performance computing environment with 3 TB disk-array has been used to support our research and international exchange for four years.
In the end of the December 2003, CAREERI have 155Mbps connectivity to Computer Network Information Center, Chinese Academy Sciences (CNIC) through the fiber optic cable. The Department of Computer Network of CAREERI is the Internet node of CSTnet in Lanzhou area. The main network devices were updated at the beginning of 2004.
The network node in our institute provide services not only with the users of our institute but also with the users of the Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Lanzhou Geology Institute, Lanzhou Modern Physics Institute and Lanzhou Resouces and Environment information Center, etc.
In the next five years, CAREERI plan to connect its seven field observation station which local in Tianshan of Xinjiang province, Geermu of Qinghai province, Naiman of Neimen province, Linze of Gansu province, Gaonan of Gansu province, Shapotou of Ninxia province to make a data center Under E-science of Chinese Academy sciences which it will be build by CNIC.
Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research is mainly centered in the regions of Lanzhou, Xian, Chengdu, Lasa, Xining, Urumqi. The main centers include:
Lanzhou
Xian
Chengdu
Lasa
Xining
Urumqi
