Comment on "Revised paleoaltimetry data show low Tibetan Plateau elevation during the Eocene"

Paul J Valdes; Ding Lin; Alex Farnsworth; Robert A Spicer; Shi-Hu Li; Su Tao

doi:10.1126/science.aax8474

Comment on "Revised paleoaltimetry data show low Tibetan Plateau elevation during the Eocene"

Science. 2019 Sep 20;365(6459):eaax8474. doi: 10.1126/science.aax8474.

Authors

Paul J Valdes¹, Ding Lin^{2

3}, Alex Farnsworth⁴, Robert A Spicer^{5

6}, Shi-Hu Li⁷, Su Tao^{3

6}

Affiliations

¹ School of Geographical Sciences and Cabot Institute, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1SS, UK. p.j.valdes@bristol.ac.uk.
² Key Laboratory of Continental Collision and Plateau Uplift, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, and Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
³ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
⁴ School of Geographical Sciences and Cabot Institute, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1SS, UK.
⁵ School of Environment, Earth and Ecosystem Sciences, Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK.
⁶ CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mengla 666303, China.
⁷ Lancaster Environment Centre, University of Lancaster, Lancaster LA1 4YQ, UK.

PMID: 31604210
DOI: 10.1126/science.aax8474

Abstract

Botsyun et al (Research Articles, 1 March 2019, eaaq1436) have suggested that the Tibetan Plateau was low (substantially less than 3000 meters) during the Eocene, based on a comparison of oxygen isotope proxy data with isotope-enabled climate model simulations. However, we contend that their conclusions are flawed as the result of a number of failings of both the modeling and the data comparison.

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