Lake variations in response to climate change in the Tibetan Plateau in the past 40 years

The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau plays an important role in global climate and environmental change and holds the largest lake area in China,with a total surface area of 36,900 km^(2).The expansion and shrinkage of these lakes are critical to the water cycle and ecological and environmental systems across the plateau.In this paper,surface areas of major lakes within the plateau were extracted based on a topographic map from 1970,and Landsat MSS,TM and ETM+satellite images from the 1970s to 2008.Then,a multivariate correlation analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between the changes in lake surface areas and the changes in climatic variables including temperature,precipitation,evaporation,and sunshine duration.Initial results suggest that the variations in lake surface areas within the plateau are closely related to the warming,humidified climate transition in recent years such as the rise of air temperature and the increase in precipitation.In particular,the rising temperature accelerates melting of glaciers and perennial snow cover and triggers permafrost degradation,and leads to the expansion of most lakes across the plateau.In addition,different distributions and types of permafrost may cause different lake variations in the southern Tibetan Plateau.

Water storage variations in the Poyang Lake Basin estimated from GRACE and satellite altimetry

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment（GRACE） satellite mission provides a unique opportunity to quantitatively study terrestrial water storage（TWS） variations. In this paper,the terrestrial water storage variations in the Poyang Lake Basin are recovered from the GRACE gravity data from January 2003 to March 2014 and compared with the Global Land Data Assimilation System（GLDAS） hydrological models and satellite altimetry. Furthermore, the impact of soil moisture content from GLDAS and rainfall from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission（TRMM） on TWS variations are investigated. Our results indicate that the TWS variations from GRACE, GLDAS and satellite altimetry have a general consistency. The TWS trends in the Poyang Lake Basin determined from GRACE, GLDAS and satellite altimetry are increasing at 0.0141 km^3/a, 0.0328 km^3/a and 0.0238 km^3/a,respectively during the investigated time period. The TWS is governed mainly by the soil moisture content and dominated primarily by the precipitation but also modulated by the flood season of the Yangtze River as well as the lake and river exchange water.

Lake evolution and its implication for environmental changes in China during 1950-2000

Lakes in China have undergone considerable environmental changes during the past 50 years, e.g. lake level, water area changes, as did in the past several thousands years. The enhanced human activities, such as land reclamation, application of chemical fertilizer, land use and cover, irrigation and industrialization in the catchment etc., have played an important role on the recent decades＇ changes of these lakes, although constrained to a great extent by the natural impact. Comparative study on variations of lake volume （water level, depth and area） in the eastern and western lake regions of China during 1950-2000 indicated that, lake volume in the eastern region had approximately undergone a two-stage change, i.e. a dramatic decrease from the 1950s to 1970s, and a continuous increase between the 1980s and 1990s; while, in the western region, lake volume had been decreasing nearly all the time. Further studies on some typical lakes concluded that, climatic change was a primary factor for the variations of lake volume during the past 50 years, although human activities showed important effect.

Spatial-temporal characteristics of lake area variations in Hoh Xil region from 1970 to 2011

As one of the areas with numerous lakes on the Tibetan Plateau, the Hoh Xil region plays an extremely important role in the fragile plateau eco-environment. Based on topographic maps in the 1970s and Landsat TM/ETM＋ remote sensing images iin the 1990s and the period from 2000 to 2011, the data of 83 lakes with an area above 10 km2 each were obtained by digitization method and artificial visual interpretation technology, and the causes for lake variations were also analyzed. Some conclusions can be drawn as follows. （1） From the 1970s to 2011, the lakes in the Hoh Xil region firstly shrank and then expanded, in particular, the area of lakes generally decreased during the 1970s-1990s. Then the lakes expanded from the 1990s to 2000 and the area was slightly higher than that in the 1970s. The area of lakes dramatically increased after 2000. （2） From 2000 to 2011, the lakes with different area ranks in the Hoh Xil region showed an overall expansion trend. Meanwhile, some regional differences were also discovered. Most of the lakes expanded and were widely distributed in the northern, central and western parts of the region. Some lakes were merged together or overflowed due to their rapid expansion. A small number of lakes with the trend of area decrease or strong fluctuation were scattered in the central and southern parts of the study area. And their variations were related to their own supply conditions or hydraulic connection with the downstream lakes or rivers. （3） The increase in precipitation was the dominant factor resulting in the expansion of lakes in the Hoh Xil region. The secondary factor was the increase in meltwater from glaciers and frozen soil due to climate warming.

Area,lake-level and volume variations of typical lakes on the Tibetan Plateau and their response to climate change,1972-2019

Most lakes have undergone significant changes on the Tibetan Plateau in recent decades,affecting water resources on the Tibetan Plateau and its surrounding areas.In this paper,we investigated the variations of 25 lakes in five sub-regions on the Tibetan Plateau from 1972 to 2019 based on SRTM DEM data and Landsat imagery.We used a method to derive lake-levels based on DEM and lake boundaries delineated from Landsat imagery,and then calculated the changes in lake area,level,and volume in 1972 to 2019.We also analyzed the potential impacts of temperature,precipitation,glacial and permafrost melting in lake changes during this period.The results show that the lakes tended to shrink until 2010 in southern and western plateau,after which they began to expand gradually but the overall trend is still shrinking.Limited meltwater from glaciers and permafrost and low precipitation are the main reasons for their shrinkage.The lakes in the central plateau,northwest plateau and northeast plateau tend to expand overall.The reason for the expansion of the lakes is not only precipitation but also the melting of glaciers and permafrost.Overall,the lake changes have gone through 3 phases,namely a slight decrease during 1972-2000,a rapid increase during 2000-2010,and a slowdown in the last decade(2010-2019).Multiple factors such as temperature,precipitation,the state of glaciers and permafrost have contributed to the changes in the lake.

Investigation of low-molecular weight organic acids and their spatiotemporal variation characteristics in Hongfeng Lake,China

The identities and concentrations of low-molecular-weight organic acids （LMWOAs） were determined by ion chromatography throughout a 20-m water column in Hongfeng Lake, China. The spatiotemporal variations of LMWOAs and their contributions to dissolved organic matter （DOM） in a research period of 24 hr were also investigated. The results demonstrated that five LMWOAs （lactic, acetic, pyruvic, sorbic, oxalic acid） were detected, and their total concentration and proportion in DOC were 6.55 μmol/L and 7.47%. Their average levels were 2.50, 0.65, 2.35, 0.96 and 0.09 μmol/L, respectively. LMWOAs were higher during daytime （10：00-18：00 on Jun 13, 2008） than nighttime （21：00-6：00 the next morning）, in particular 4.99 μmol/L high in the epilimnion （ 1 m water depth）, reflecting the fact that direct import from terrigenous sources and photochemical production from humic materials were dominant during LMWOAs＇ origin and accumulation. The same factors caused LMWOAs to be 0.63 μmol/L in the epilimnion higher than in the hypolimnion. The rapid decrease of total organic acid （TOA） up until 18：00 mainly resulted from bio-uptake and mineralization in the hypolimnion （〉1 m water depth）. Pyruvic acid increased with time in the epilimnion and decreased in the hypolimnion, largely related to the two contrary processes of continuous degradation and synthesis of macromolecular organic matter during life materials＇ cycle mediated by organisms. Simultaneously, plankton behavior and thermal stratification played a pivotal role in LMWOAs＇ behavior in the water column, causing decreasing and increasing profiles. The distribution of LMWOAs represents an interesting resource for biogeochemical research of DOM in aquatic ecosystems.