Observed permafrost thawing and disappearance near the altitudinal limit of permafrost in the Qilian Mountains

Sun, Wenxing; Zhang, Tingjun; Clow, Gary D.; Sun, Yan-Hua; Zhao, Wenyu; Liang, Benben; Fan, Chengyan; Peng, Xiaoqing; Cao, Bin

doi:10.1016/j.accre.2022.08.004

Cited by 8 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Over the past several decades, permafrost soil area has severely decreased at a progressively faster rate (T. Wang et al., 2017). Borehole measurements at multiple sites all show soil temperature, especially at depths greater than 7 m, increased over the past years (Sun et al., 2022), resulting in increased groundwater recharge. For example, since 2004 there has been a 0.47 × 10 8 m 3 /a increase ( p < 0.01) in groundwater volume in the Haibei Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, on the QM's southern slope (Figure 8c), which could benefit regional baseflow during dry and cold seasons.…”

Section: Driving Factors Of Runoff Variationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characteristics and Attribution of Spatiotemporal Changes in Qilian Mountains' Runoff Over the Past Six Decades

Liu,

Wang,

Cuo

et al. 2023

JGR Atmospheres

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Tibet's Qilian Mountains (QM) include critical water conservation areas and important ecological barriers, which help maintain downstream inland river oasis stability. For decades, contemporaneous climatic and cryospheric variation has severely impacted QM's hydrological processes, challenging local water resource management and sustainable development. However, due to prevalent data and methodological limitations, QM research has primarily focused on runoff change at a basin scale. Spatial distributions and temporal changes in runoff subsequently remain unclear. Based on multi‐source data and the literature, we estimated that QM's mountain outlets generate approximately 15.671 km3 in total annual runoff, exhibiting a spatially decreasing pattern from northeast to southwest. Moreover, runoff distribution and trend variation at seasonal and annual scales depend upon the river replenishment source type. Beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, eastern rain‐fed rivers experienced a downward trend while those dominated by meltwater or simultaneously fed by multiple sources in its central and western regions experienced an upward trend. As an integrated product of mixed multi‐factor effects, runoff is regulated by temperature, precipitation, and cryospheric meltwater. Moreover, the main controlling runoff factors varied seasonally under different water source concentrations. Annually, precipitation was the main driver for runoff change in the eastern region while, correspondingly, temperature was in the western region where glaciers and the snow line boundary predominant. Besides, this study highlighted that the existing literature has significant limitations in understanding interactions among different cryospheric components and hydrologic process mechanisms when exploring the reasons for runoff variations, which needs further exploration in the future.

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Section: Driving Factors Of Runoff Variationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characteristics and Attribution of Spatiotemporal Changes in Qilian Mountains' Runoff Over the Past Six Decades

Liu,

Wang,

Cuo

et al. 2023

JGR Atmospheres

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“…It is hence widely investigated as an indicator to understand the thermal state of soil under a warming world (Burke et al., 2020; Smith et al., 2022; Zhang et al., 2018). In addition, T s measurements are commonly used to calibrate models' surface energy balance components or as an upper boundary for soil hydrothermal process simulation (Gisnås et al., 2014; Sun et al., 2022). Despite the importance, regular T s measurements, especially long‐term time‐series measurements, are relatively rare and often unavailable in most regions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Consistent Ground Surface Temperature Climatology Over China: 1956–2022

Wang,

Cao,

Hao

et al. 2024

JGR Atmospheres

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The ground surface represents the land‐atmosphere interface and plays a crucial role in exchanging energy, matter, and biochemical fluxes. The ground surface temperature (Ts) is hence widely investigated as an indicator to understand the thermal state of soil in a warming world. However, regular and continuous Ts measurements are rare worldwide, and the early Ts records were derived from snow surface measurements and are not comparable with the measurements of modern automatic systems. In this study, we reconstruct the Ts records of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) for 1956–2022 by numerical simulation. The results show that the mean annual ground surface temperature (MAGST) during 1981–2010 ranged from 0.4 to 30.8°C at 632 stations. The MAGST was mainly controlled by air temperature and refined by snow depth. The overall MAGST increased by 0.20 ± 0.02°C dec−1 across China during 1956–2022 and showed pronounced interdecadal variability corresponding to the surface air temperature (0.23 ± 0.03°C dec−1). At the snow‐covered sites, the Ts warming was amplified by increased snow depth, leading to about 0.24°C dec−1 (or 70.6%) faster warming for Ts in winter compared to that of surface air temperature. Many of the early reported ground surface temperature studies based on CMA measurements did not consider the measurement inconsistency and likely overestimated the warming trend of ground surface temperature over China.

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Formation-evolutionary mechanism of large debris flow in semi-arid region, the northeastern Tibetan Plateau

Jiang,

Wang,

Zhou

et al. 2024

Landslides

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Observed permafrost thawing and disappearance near the altitudinal limit of permafrost in the Qilian Mountains

Cited by 8 publications

References 49 publications

Characteristics and Attribution of Spatiotemporal Changes in Qilian Mountains' Runoff Over the Past Six Decades

Characteristics and Attribution of Spatiotemporal Changes in Qilian Mountains' Runoff Over the Past Six Decades

Consistent Ground Surface Temperature Climatology Over China: 1956–2022

Formation-evolutionary mechanism of large debris flow in semi-arid region, the northeastern Tibetan Plateau

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