Precipitation Dominates Long-Term Water Storage Changes in Nam Co Lake (Tibetan Plateau) Accompanied by Intensified Cryosphere Melts Revealed by a Basin-Wide Hydrological Modelling
Open Access
- 14 June 2020
- journal article
- research article
- Published by MDPI AG in Remote Sensing
- Vol. 12 (12), 1926
- https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12121926
Abstract
Lakes on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) have changed dramatically as a result of climate change during recent decades. Studying the changes in long-term lake water storage (LWS) is of great importance for regional water security and ecosystems. Nam Co Lake is the second largest lake in the central TP. To investigate the long-term changes in LWS, a distributed cryosphere-hydrology model (WEB-DHM) driven by multi-source data was evaluated and then applied to simulate hydrological processes across the whole Nam Co Lake basin from 1980 to 2016. Firstly, a comparison of runoff (lake inflow), land surface temperature, and snow depth between the model simulations and observations or remote sensing products showed that WEB-DHM could accurately simulate hydrological processes in the basin. Meanwhile, the simulated daily LWS was in good agreement with satellite-derived data during 2000–2016. Secondly, long-term simulations showed that LWS increased by 9.26 km3 during 1980–2016, reaching a maximum in 2010 that was 10.25 km3 greater than that in 1980. During this period, LWS firstly decreased (1980–1987), then increased (1988–2008), and decreased again (2009–2016). Thirdly, the contributions of precipitation runoff, melt-water runoff, lake surface precipitation, and lake evaporation to Nam Co LWS were 71%, 33%, 24%, and -28%, respectively. Snow and glacier melting have significantly intensified during recent decades (2.96 m3 s−1/decade on average), contributing a mean proportion of 22% of lake inflows. These findings are consistent with the significant increasing trends of annual precipitation and temperature in the lake basin (25 mm/decade and 0.4 K/decade, respectively). We conclude that long-term variations in Nam Co LWS during 1980–2016 were largely controlled by precipitation; however, the contribution of precipitation runoff to total lake inflow has decreased while the contribution from warming-induced snow and glacier melting has significantly increased.Funding Information
- The National Natural Science Foundation of China (41771089)
This publication has 63 references indexed in Scilit:
- Modeling the land surface water and energy cycles of a mesoscale watershed in the central Tibetan Plateau during summer with a distributed hydrological modelJournal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 2013
- Water balance observations reveal significant subsurface water seepage from Lake Nam Co, south-central Tibetan PlateauJournal of Hydrology, 2013
- Coherent lake growth on the central Tibetan Plateau since the 1970s: Characterization and attributionJournal of Hydrology, 2013
- Estimation and trend detection of water storage at Nam Co Lake, central Tibetan PlateauJournal of Hydrology, 2011
- Response of hydrological cycle to recent climate changes in the Tibetan PlateauClimatic Change, 2011
- Climate Change Will Affect the Asian Water TowersScience, 2010
- On downward shortwave and longwave radiations over high altitude regions: Observation and modeling in the Tibetan PlateauAgricultural and Forest Meteorology, 2010
- Improving the hydrology of the Simple Biosphere Model 2 and its evaluation within the framework of a distributed hydrological modelHydrological Sciences Journal, 2009
- Assessment of a distributed biosphere hydrological model against streamflow and MODIS land surface temperature in the upper Tone River BasinJournal of Hydrology, 2009
- Long-Term Study of Lake Evaporation and Evaluation of Seven Estimation Methods: Results from Dickie Lake, South-Central Ontario, CanadaJournal of Water Resource and Protection, 2009