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

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Abstract

To study the response of lakes to climate change, variations in volume of closed lakes larger than 50 km2 on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) were analyzed by integrating Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, Digital Elevation Model (SRTM DEM) and LANDSAT images. Total lake volume (LV) increased (net) by 102.64 km3 during 1976–2013 with an average annual rate of 2.77 km3 year−1; the rate increased dramatically to 7.67 km3 year−1 during 2000–2013. Four main patterns of LV change were discovered using k-means clustering analysis: (1) a slight increase in LV during 1976–2000 followed by a rapid increase in the southeastern part of the endorheic region, (2) an initial decrease in LV followed by an increase during 1990–2013 in the central and western parts of the endorheic region, (3) an initial decrease in LV followed by an increase during 2000–2013 in the northeastern part of the endorheic region, and (4) an overall decrease during the whole study period for the southern outflow region. Precipitation was the dominant factor affecting LV change. In particular, abnormally large amounts of precipitation during 2000–2013 resulted in a dramatic increase in LV. Temperature changes were positively correlated to LV change before 2000 and negatively after 2000. Glaciers have different influence on LV change based on the comparison between lakes with and without glacial melt input. The distinct regional patterns of change in LV indicate that the sensitivity of lakes to a changing climate varies depending upon the time period and spatial location. These findings have important implications for both the interpretation of past lake level records and prediction of future lake responses to climate change.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the CAS Strategic Priority Research Program (XDB03030000), NSFC projects (41190082), and the China MOST program (2012FY111400, 2012CB956100). The authors gratefully acknowledge the USGS for freely providing the SRTM DEM and LANDSAT data. The surface meteorological data were provided by the Center of Science Data on the Tibetan Plateau (http://www.tpedatabase.cn). The authors also thank Dr. Yong Wang, Dr. ** Peng, and Mr. Lei Huang for their assistance in the bathymetric survey of the lakes, and Mr. Hongbo Zhang, Mr. Wei Yan, Mr. Sascha Fürstenberg, Dr. Mingda Wang, and Mr. Junming Guo for their advice regarding the data processing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Land Surface Processes (TEL), Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research (ITP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Bei**g, China

    Ruimin Yang, Li** Zhu, Junbo Wang, Jianting Ju, Qingfeng Ma, Falko Turner & Yun Guo

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Bei**g, 100049, China

    Ruimin Yang & Yun Guo

  3. CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth System, Bei**g, China

    Li** Zhu & Junbo Wang

  4. Institute of Geosystems and Bioindication, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany

    Falko Turner

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  1. Ruimin Yang
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  5. Qingfeng Ma
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  7. Yun Guo
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Correspondence to Ruimin Yang or Li** Zhu.

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Yang, R., Zhu, L., Wang, J. et al. Spatiotemporal variations in volume of closed lakes on the Tibetan Plateau and their climatic responses from 1976 to 2013. Climatic Change 140, 621–633 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-016-1877-9

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