As one of the most important reservoirs of water in arid regions, lakes experience a series of complicated changes. However, the natural driving mechanisms behind such changes remain unclear. In this study, we collected data from 1333 lakes in the arid region of Central East Asia (CEA) to investigate the underlying natural causes of lake changes over the past five decades. The lakes were located within three different geomorphological zones: (I) Tibetan Plateau zone; (II) high mountain—basin zone; and (III) low mountain zone. Our results show that lakes as a whole in CEA exhibit a unique change trend, with an overall lake area increase of 7099 km² (41%) and with heterogeneous spatial variations over the past five decades. The lake area increase was 6236 km² (47%), 935 km² (31%) and decrease was 72 km² (~1%) in zones I, II, and III, respectively. The different geomorphological zones have influencing factors. In zones I and II, increased precipitation (including cloud water) and temperature rise (causing glacier, frozen soil, and snow melt) contributed to approximately 66% of the change in lake area; in zone III, changes in precipitation contributed to approximately 87% of the lake changes. Increased atmospheric circulation of water vapor caused by warming of the ocean surface appears to be the main driving factor of these changes; this is supported by future projection scenarios. From 2006 to 2098, temperature and precipitation will increase by 4.0–7.8 °C and 1.07 to 1.29 mm per day, respectively, under both the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. Notably, although the climate appears to have become more optimum for lakes in CEA at the interdecadal timescale, short timescale climatic events such as lake expansion will bring more extreme climate events, such as extreme high-temperature heat waves, which should be considered as a potential threat to lake ecology in the future.

The Tibet Plateau is the world’s highest inhabited terrain, with an area >2.5×106 km2 and an average elevation >4000 m asl. Its uplift has been regarded as the main factor driving the evolution of the Asian monsoon regime and alpine biodiversity. The Miocene epoch is now deemed critical for understanding the timing of the attainment of the highest paleoelevation of the Tibet Plateau, the development of the modern Asia monsoon regime, and the acceleration of the evolution of alpine biodiversity. However, the northern Tibet Plateau remains poorly investigated.Tsuga, Podocarpus, Abies, and Picea are four typical montane conifer genera. Although influenced by factors such as precipitation, geographical location, and soil properties, these taxa have elevation-specific habitats in Asia: Tsuga and Podocarpus usually grow at middle elevations (300 to 3500 and 600 to 2000 m asl, respectively) whereas Abies and Picea grow at higher elevations (500 to 4700 and 300 to 4700 m asl, respectively). Therefore, the representation of these genera in pollen assemblages can be used to reconstruct paleoelevation.We tested new pollen analysis from Miocene sedimentary sequences of Huaitoutala section, and compiled them with other three sites (Core Sino-German-1, Core KC-1, and Yahu section in the Qaidam Basin (paleo-Qaidam Lake), northern Tibet Plateau. We selected these pollen records of Tsuga, Podocarpus, Abies, and Picea to build a new paleoaltimetry to construct two parallel midrange paleoelevation sequences in the northern Tibet Plateau at 1332 ± 189 m and 433 ± 189 m, respectively, during the Middle Miocene (~15 Ma). They increased rapidly to 3685±87 m in the Late Miocene (~11 Ma) in the east, and to 3589±62 m at ~7 Ma in the west. Our estimated rises in the east and west parts of the northern Tibet Plateau during 15-7 Ma, together with data from other Tibet Plateau regions, indicate that during the Late Miocene the entire plateau may have reached a high elevation close to that of today, with consequent impacts on atmospheric precipitation and alpine biodiversity.

Calamitaceae was the predominant arborescent element of the Late Paleozoic plant assemblages. However, there is currently controversy surrounding the evolutionary relationships of their four reproductive organs, and there is no unified understanding of the geographical distribution and species richness characteristics. This paper is based on the detailed description of the macro- and microstructures of Calamites and Macrostachya discovered in the Shanxi Formation of the Cisuralian in the eastern Hexi Corridor of northwestern China, and it discusses the evolutionary patterns of calamitean reproductive organs. The results indicate that the current specimens can be identified as the Calamites cistii and Macrostachya sp., and the in situ spores should exhibit distinct trilete marks, indicating that they belong to the Punctatisporites punctatus. The abundant fossil records suggest that the “Calamostachys” type should be considered as the ancestral type of strobili. Additionally, Calamitaceae was widely distributed in mid to low latitudes globally from the Pennsylvanian to the Cisuralian and coupled with paleogeographic distribution characteristics.