Chemical weathering to climatic variations in the Yellow River source region

High-elevation catchments are critical indicators of the earth's response to global warming. This study collected water chemistry data for runoff in the Yellow River source region from 2002 to 2019 to reconstruct the chemical weathering processes. From 2002 to 2019, the temperature in this region increased significantly along with the precipitation and runoff. The annual chemical weathering rates in this region ranged from 30.9 to 78 t·km^-2, with an average of 53.2 t·km^-2, which is more than twice the average chemical weathering rate of all global rivers. The annual chemical weathering processes in this region increased with increasing temperature at a rate of 1.13 t·km^-2/a. In the context of global warming, the Tibetan high-elevation catchments play important roles in the material exchanges between the land and the oceans and contribute to the stabilization of atmospheric CO₂.