Abstract
As one of the inland rivers in arid areas of Northwest China, precipitation is an important supply for the Shiyang River. Daily-scale stable isotopes of precipitation can provide record evidence for the moisture sources, so we collected daily δ2H and δ18O data of precipitation obtained from 11 sampling points and reanalysis meteorological data in the Shiyang River Basin from 2016 to 2020, to explore the moisture sources and the impact on moisture fluxes and precipitation isotope. The results showed the δ2H and δ18O values increase from upstream area to midstream and downstream areas, but the spatial variation of d-excess values is reversed. Dominated by westerly moisture, the moisture flux is higher when the westerly wind strengthens in winter. And the strength of the monsoon determines the water vapor content in summer. The δ18O is depleted in precipitation related to maritime sources than continental sources. Significant depletion of δ18O in precipitation is associated with the Atlantic Ocean (− 13.9‰) and Indian Ocean (− 13.5‰) sources, attributed to enhanced Rayleigh distillation caused by longer transport distances. The enrichment of δ18O in precipitation is associated with continental sources affected by evapotranspiration and secondary evaporation, such as inland China (− 8.0‰), Europe (− 8.6‰), and Mongolia-Siberia (− 9.0‰). This study indicates the moisture sources and transport processes in inland river basins of arid area, contributing to the understanding of the water cycle.
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Data Availability
Data are available on request from the authors. The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. The data are used to calculate the trajectory of air mass from NCEP Products Inventory GDAS (ftp://arlftp.arlhq.noaa.gov/pub/archives/gdas1). The data of moisture flux are from NCEP/NCAR 2.5° × 2.5° reanalysis data (https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.ncep.reanalysis.html).
Code availability
The codes used in GrADS are available from the corresponding author.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank the colleagues in the Northwest Normal University and Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAREERI, CAS) for their help in fieldwork, laboratory analysis, and data processing.
Funding
This research was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41661005, 41867030, 41971036).
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MMZ conceptualized the methodology framework, validated the results, and was a major contributor in writing the manuscript. WXJ edited and proofread the main text. GFZ provided the required resources. FHZ analyzed the data. LY and HX participated in data collection and management. YZ and XL conceptualized and supervised. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Zhang, M., Jia, W., Zhu, G. et al. The effect of the seasonality of moisture sources on moisture flux and precipitation stable isotopes in the Shiyang River Basin. Theor Appl Climatol 151, 767–783 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-022-04290-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-022-04290-3