Print Email Facebook Twitter Accelerated lake expansion on the Tibetan Plateau in the 2000s: Induced by glacial melting or other processes? Title Accelerated lake expansion on the Tibetan Plateau in the 2000s: Induced by glacial melting or other processes? Author Song, C. Huang, B. Richards, K. Ke, L. Phan Hien, V. Faculty Civil Engineering and Geosciences Department Geoscience & Remote Sensing Date 2014-04-10 Abstract ccelerated lake expansion in the 2000s has been confirmed by both dramatic lake-area increases (for 312 lakes larger than 10 km2) derived from optical images, and rapid water-level rises (for 117 lakes with water-level data) measured by satellite altimetry. However, the underlying climate causes remain unclear. This paper analyzes the relationship between the water-level changes of lakes on the plateau and the potential driving factors, such as the glacier meltwater supply and a dependency on precipitation and runoff over the whole plateau and in each zone. The results show that the rates of change of non-glacier-fed lakes in the 2000s were as high as those of glacier-fed lakes across the whole plateau and the lake-level changes were closely associated with the lake supply coefficients (the basin/lake area ratio). The lake variations agreed well with the spatial pattern of precipitation changes. However, in different zones, especially at around 33°N north of the plateau, glacier-fed lakes did exhibit faster lake level increases than no-glacier-fed lakes, indicating that the presence of a glacier meltwater supply augmented the precipitation-driven lake expansions in these areas. Despite the absence of quantitative modeling due to limited data availability, this study provides qualitative support that the lake expansions on the Tibetan Plateau in the 2000s have been driven primarily by changes in precipitation and evapotranspiration and not solely by the effect of glacier wastage. Subject lakeTibetan Plateauwater levelglacierclimate change To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:fe695660-3965-4f0c-90ca-1a3d7bfaacbd DOI https://doi.org/10.1002/2013WR014724 Publisher American Geophysical Union Embargo date 2014-10-10 ISSN 0043-1397 Source Water Resources Research, 50 (4), 2014 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type journal article Rights © 2014 American Geophysical Union Files PDF HienPhan_2014.pdf 2.45 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:fe695660-3965-4f0c-90ca-1a3d7bfaacbd/datastream/OBJ/view