Lake storage variation on the endorheic Tibetan Plateau and its attribution to climate change since the new millennium
Alpine lakes in the interior of Tibet, the endorheic Changtang Plateau (CP), serve as ‘sentinels’ of regional climate change. Recent studies indicated that accelerated climate change has driven a widespread area expansion in lakes across the CP, but comprehensive and accurate quantifications of thei...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:8a488f51ac524fe387769f1b62255f19 2023-09-05T13:22:35+02:00 Lake storage variation on the endorheic Tibetan Plateau and its attribution to climate change since the new millennium Fangfang Yao Jida Wang Kehan Yang Chao Wang Blake A Walter Jean-François Crétaux 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aab5d3 https://doaj.org/article/8a488f51ac524fe387769f1b62255f19 EN eng IOP Publishing https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aab5d3 https://doaj.org/toc/1748-9326 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aab5d3 1748-9326 https://doaj.org/article/8a488f51ac524fe387769f1b62255f19 Environmental Research Letters, Vol 13, Iss 6, p 064011 (2018) alpine lakes Changtang Plateau endorheic Tibet lake water storage climate change satellite altimetry Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 article 2018 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aab5d3 2023-08-13T00:37:37Z Alpine lakes in the interior of Tibet, the endorheic Changtang Plateau (CP), serve as ‘sentinels’ of regional climate change. Recent studies indicated that accelerated climate change has driven a widespread area expansion in lakes across the CP, but comprehensive and accurate quantifications of their storage changes are hitherto rare. This study integrated optical imagery and digital elevation models to uncover the fine spatial details of lake water storage (LWS) changes across the CP at an annual timescale after the new millennium (from 2002–2015). Validated by hypsometric information based on long-term altimetry measurements, our estimated LWS variations outperform some existing studies with reduced estimation biases and improved spatiotemporal coverages. The net LWS increased at an average rate of 7.34 ± 0.62 Gt yr ^−1 (cumulatively 95.42 ± 8.06 Gt), manifested as a dramatic monotonic increase of 9.05 ± 0.65 Gt yr ^−1 before 2012, a deceleration and pause in 2013–2014, and then an intriguing decline after 2014. Observations from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites reveal that the LWS pattern is in remarkable agreement with that of regional mass changes: a net effect of precipitation minus evapotranspiration (P-ET) in endorheic basins. Despite some regional variations, P-ET explains ~70% of the net LWS gain from 2002–2012 and the entire LWS loss after 2013. These findings clearly suggest that the water budget from net precipitation (i.e. P-ET) dominates those of glacier melt and permafrost degradation, and thus acts as the primary contributor to recent lake area/volume variations in endorheic Tibet. The produced lake areas and volume change dataset is freely available through PANAGEA ( https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.888706 ). Article in Journal/Newspaper permafrost Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Environmental Research Letters 13 6 064011 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
alpine lakes Changtang Plateau endorheic Tibet lake water storage climate change satellite altimetry Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 |
spellingShingle |
alpine lakes Changtang Plateau endorheic Tibet lake water storage climate change satellite altimetry Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 Fangfang Yao Jida Wang Kehan Yang Chao Wang Blake A Walter Jean-François Crétaux Lake storage variation on the endorheic Tibetan Plateau and its attribution to climate change since the new millennium |
topic_facet |
alpine lakes Changtang Plateau endorheic Tibet lake water storage climate change satellite altimetry Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 |
description |
Alpine lakes in the interior of Tibet, the endorheic Changtang Plateau (CP), serve as ‘sentinels’ of regional climate change. Recent studies indicated that accelerated climate change has driven a widespread area expansion in lakes across the CP, but comprehensive and accurate quantifications of their storage changes are hitherto rare. This study integrated optical imagery and digital elevation models to uncover the fine spatial details of lake water storage (LWS) changes across the CP at an annual timescale after the new millennium (from 2002–2015). Validated by hypsometric information based on long-term altimetry measurements, our estimated LWS variations outperform some existing studies with reduced estimation biases and improved spatiotemporal coverages. The net LWS increased at an average rate of 7.34 ± 0.62 Gt yr ^−1 (cumulatively 95.42 ± 8.06 Gt), manifested as a dramatic monotonic increase of 9.05 ± 0.65 Gt yr ^−1 before 2012, a deceleration and pause in 2013–2014, and then an intriguing decline after 2014. Observations from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites reveal that the LWS pattern is in remarkable agreement with that of regional mass changes: a net effect of precipitation minus evapotranspiration (P-ET) in endorheic basins. Despite some regional variations, P-ET explains ~70% of the net LWS gain from 2002–2012 and the entire LWS loss after 2013. These findings clearly suggest that the water budget from net precipitation (i.e. P-ET) dominates those of glacier melt and permafrost degradation, and thus acts as the primary contributor to recent lake area/volume variations in endorheic Tibet. The produced lake areas and volume change dataset is freely available through PANAGEA ( https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.888706 ). |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Fangfang Yao Jida Wang Kehan Yang Chao Wang Blake A Walter Jean-François Crétaux |
author_facet |
Fangfang Yao Jida Wang Kehan Yang Chao Wang Blake A Walter Jean-François Crétaux |
author_sort |
Fangfang Yao |
title |
Lake storage variation on the endorheic Tibetan Plateau and its attribution to climate change since the new millennium |
title_short |
Lake storage variation on the endorheic Tibetan Plateau and its attribution to climate change since the new millennium |
title_full |
Lake storage variation on the endorheic Tibetan Plateau and its attribution to climate change since the new millennium |
title_fullStr |
Lake storage variation on the endorheic Tibetan Plateau and its attribution to climate change since the new millennium |
title_full_unstemmed |
Lake storage variation on the endorheic Tibetan Plateau and its attribution to climate change since the new millennium |
title_sort |
lake storage variation on the endorheic tibetan plateau and its attribution to climate change since the new millennium |
publisher |
IOP Publishing |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aab5d3 https://doaj.org/article/8a488f51ac524fe387769f1b62255f19 |
genre |
permafrost |
genre_facet |
permafrost |
op_source |
Environmental Research Letters, Vol 13, Iss 6, p 064011 (2018) |
op_relation |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aab5d3 https://doaj.org/toc/1748-9326 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aab5d3 1748-9326 https://doaj.org/article/8a488f51ac524fe387769f1b62255f19 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aab5d3 |
container_title |
Environmental Research Letters |
container_volume |
13 |
container_issue |
6 |
container_start_page |
064011 |
_version_ |
1776203087322546176 |