Spatiotemporal variations in volume of closed lakes on the Tibetan Plateau and their climatic responses from 1976 to 2013

Yang, Ruimin; Zhu, Liping; Wang, Junbo; Ju, Jianting; Ma, Qingfeng; Turner, Falko; Guo, Yun

doi:10.1007/s10584-016-1877-9

Cited by 116 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Undoubtedly the lake water storage gains comprise one of the primary signal sources of GRACE‐observed TWS changes in the TP. The following studies using similar methods or combining with DEM data estimated the lake water volume changes in the TP or specific lakes/regions (Crétaux et al ., ; Yang et al ., ; Yao et al ., ; Qiao et al ., ). We note that our estimate of potentially intensified evaporation water flux by the expanding surface water areas is nearly half of the recent accumulation rate of lake water storage.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of amplified evaporation due to lake expansion on the water budget across the inner Tibetan Plateau

Song

Sheng

Zhan

et al. 2019

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Over the past decades, changing climate has exerted pronounced influences on the cryo‐hydrological environment on the Tibetan Plateau. One major manifestation is the widespread lake expansions over Tibetan endorheic basins. The enlarged lake water surface areas are expected to significantly alter land‐atmosphere water fluxes, which in return may pose feedbacks to the climate system and hydrological processes. The goal of this study is to investigate the potential influences of the recent lake expansions on amplifying the evaporation flux over the basins of inner Tibetan Plateau (ITP). We detected that the ITP lakes have experienced a net inundation increase of 4,542.3 km2 during 2000–2015, about 95.6% of which was contributed by lakes larger than 1 km2. We further estimated the land and water evaporations based on multi‐source, available actual evapotranspiration (ETa) and potential evapotranspiration data sets, and in situ evaporation records. The differences between land ETa and lake water evaporation were employed to represent the evaporation alternation over newly inundated basin (named “land‐to‐lake” hereafter) areas. The land ETa was estimated based on the average of three commonly used gridded data sets while the over‐lake evaporation was calculated by the empirical correction of potential evaporation estimates by spatial interpolation of pan evaporation. A conservative estimate using the pan coefficient of 0.6 indicates that the newly inundated lake area may have led to a potential evaporation increase of 3.08 ± 1.08 Gt/year on the ITP. The increased evaporation flux is close to half of the recent annual growth rate of lake water storage in the ITP. Despite unneglectable uncertainties, our estimates initiate an important assessment of how the recent lake expansion across the ITP has influenced the local land‐atmosphere interactions and the water cycle. Accounting this evaporation amplification is crucial to reduce the uncertainty in estimating basin‐scale water budgets and projecting the regional water balance.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of amplified evaporation due to lake expansion on the water budget across the inner Tibetan Plateau

Song

Sheng

Zhan

et al. 2019

Intl Journal of Climatology

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“…Lake level change can be retrieved from laser or radar altimetry [ Crétaux et al , ; Kleinherenbrink et al , ; Zhang et al , ]. Combining water level change with lake area can then give estimates of variations in lake water volume [ Song et al , ; Yang et al , ; Zhang et al , , ]. For example, water volume changes of 11 large lakes in the southern TP between 1992 and 2015 have been estimated [ Crétaux et al , ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…• Lake area, level, and volume vary in three stages: slight decrease (1970s-1995), rapid increase (1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010), and recent slowdown (2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015) • Lake and groundwater storage both increased at similar rates in Tibetan Plateau's endorheic basin over [2003][2004][2005][2006][2007][2008][2009] • Increased precipitation contributes a major water supply (74%) for lake volume increase, followed by glacier melting (13%) in [2003][2004][2005][2006][2007][2008][2009] of variations in lake water volume [Song et al, 2013;Yang et al, 2017;Zhang et al, 2013aZhang et al, , 2013b. For example, water volume changes of 11 large lakes in the southern TP between 1992 and 2015 have been estimated [Crétaux et al, 2016].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lake volume and groundwater storage variations in Tibetan Plateau's endorheic basin

Zhang

Yao

Shum

et al. 2017

Geophysical Research Letters

348

241

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The Tibetan Plateau (TP), the highest and largest plateau in the world, with complex and competing cryospheric‐hydrologic‐geodynamic processes, is particularly sensitive to anthropogenic warming. The quantitative water mass budget in the TP is poorly known. Here we examine annual changes in lake area, level, and volume during 1970s–2015. We find that a complex pattern of lake volume changes during 1970s–2015: a slight decrease of −2.78 Gt yr−1 during 1970s–1995, followed by a rapid increase of 12.53 Gt yr−1 during 1996–2010, and then a recent deceleration (1.46 Gt yr−1) during 2011–2015. We then estimated the recent water mass budget for the Inner TP, 2003–2009, including changes in terrestrial water storage, lake volume, glacier mass, snow water equivalent (SWE), soil moisture, and permafrost. The dominant components of water mass budget, namely, changes in lake volume (7.72 ± 0.63 Gt yr−1) and groundwater storage (5.01 ± 1.59 Gt yr−1), increased at similar rates. We find that increased net precipitation contributes the majority of water supply (74%) for the lake volume increase, followed by glacier mass loss (13%), and ground ice melt due to permafrost degradation (12%). Other term such as SWE (1%) makes a relatively small contribution. These results suggest that the hydrologic cycle in the TP has intensified remarkably during recent decades.

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“…As a critical driving force to TWS, precipitation has exhibited an overall increasing trend over the west to central TP in this period based on either station observations or reanalysis products (Gao et al, 2015;Tong et al, 2014;Wang et al, 2018;Yang et al, 2014;Zhang, Tang, et al, 2017;Zhang et al, 2019). Increased precipitation is considered the major driver for mass gain of the ETP (Lei et al, 2014;Yang et al, 2017;Zhang, Yao, et al, 2017); however, little work has been done to systematically examine the influencing factors of AW transport on precipitation and TWS changes over the ETP.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atmospheric Water Transport to the Endorheic Tibetan Plateau and Its Effect on the Hydrological Status in the Region

Chen

et al. 2019

JGR Atmospheres

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The endorheic Tibetan Plateau (ETP), which consists of all the endorheic basins of the Tibetan Plateau (TP), has exhibited an overall mass gain in recent decades. However, the role played by atmospheric water (AW) transport on the hydrological status over the ETP is poorly understood. In this study, the AW source to the ETP was tracked with the Water Accounting Model‐2 layers (WAM‐2) and AW transport to the ETP through its boundaries was quantified, with three reanalysis products (ERA‐I, MERRA‐2, and JRA‐55) during 1979/1980–2015. It is found that total AW input to the ETP is about 13–25%, 59–71%, 10–13%, and 3–7% of mean annual totals in spring, summer, autumn, and winter, respectively. At annual scales, the AW source from land (52–54%) dominates the AW contribution to the ETP, while local recycling of AW over the ETP accounts for about 17–22% of the mean annual total AW contribution. Increased precipitation over the ETP during 1979–2015 was mostly attributed to the significantly increased AW contribution from the Indian Ocean, especially from increased AW inputs transported from the western and southern boundaries in summer. Comparisons between the AW budget and terrestrial water storage changes indicate that the AW budget change over the ETP modulated the variations of terrestrial water storage change during 2002–2014 and annual lake mass change during 1989–2015.

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Spatiotemporal variations in volume of closed lakes on the Tibetan Plateau and their climatic responses from 1976 to 2013

Cited by 116 publications

References 34 publications

Impact of amplified evaporation due to lake expansion on the water budget across the inner Tibetan Plateau

Impact of amplified evaporation due to lake expansion on the water budget across the inner Tibetan Plateau

Lake volume and groundwater storage variations in Tibetan Plateau's endorheic basin

Atmospheric Water Transport to the Endorheic Tibetan Plateau and Its Effect on the Hydrological Status in the Region

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