Abstract
Abstract. The Tibetan Plateau includes a large system of endorheic (closed basin) lakes. Lake ice phenology, i.e. the timing of freeze-up and break-up and the duration of the ice cover may provide valuable information about climate variations in this region. The ice phenology of 59 large lakes on the Tibetan Plateau was derived from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) 8-day composite data for the period from 2001 to 2010. Ice cover duration appears to have a high variability in the studied region due to both climatic and local factors. Mean values for the duration of ice cover were calculated for three groups of lakes defined by clustering, resulting in relatively compact geographic regions. In each group several lakes showed anomalies in ice cover duration in the studied period. Possible reasons for such anomalous behaviour are discussed. Furthermore, many lakes do not freeze up completely during some seasons. This was confirmed by inspection of high resolution optical data. Mild winter seasons, large water volume and/or high salinity are the most likely explanations. Trends in the ice cover duration derived by linear regression for all the studied lakes show a high variation in space. A correlation of ice phenology variables with parameters describing climatic and local conditions showed a high thermal dependency of the ice regime. It appears that the freeze-up tends to be more thermally determined than break-up for the studied lakes.
Highlights
The Tibetan Plateau (TP) was identified as one of the most sensitive regions in the world to changes in climate (Liu and Chen, 2000)
The lake ice phenology for 59 lakes on the TP has been extracted from the time series of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) 8-day composites for the period from 2001 to 2010
Ice phenology was derived for 59 lakes on the TP from MODIS 8-day composite data
Summary
The Tibetan Plateau (TP) was identified as one of the most sensitive regions in the world to changes in climate (Liu and Chen, 2000). Because of its unique properties, the TP has a strong impact on the global climate system, acting as a large heat source and moisture sink during the summer (Ueno et al, 2001; Hsu and Liu, 2003; Sato and Kimura, 2007). It impacts the monsoon circulation as a barrier to zonal and meridional air motion (e.g. Kurzbach et al, 1993; Barry, 2008). Variations in climate in this area are reflected by several phenomena that are well documented by satellite records such as snow distribution (Shreve et al, 2009; Xu et al, 2009; Kropacek et al, 2010), changes in glacier extent (Ye et al, 2006, Bolch et al, 2010), and fluctuations in lake area (Bianduo et al, 2009), which can be seen as climate indicators
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