Investigation of Climate Change Impact on Salt Lake by Statistical Methods

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate climate change impact that have been occurred on Salt Lake
 located in the central Anatolia is one of the area that has been faced to extinction. In order to monitor current
 status of the Salt Lake, Landsat satellite images has been obtained between the year of 2000 and 2014 (for the
 months of February, May, August and November). Satellite images has been processed by using ArcGIS and
 ERDAS softwares and the water surface area has been determined. The time series of water surface areas has
 been analyzed with auto-correlation method and repeated pattern has been detected. The seasonal part of the
 time series which period is 1 year and causes about 400 km² fluctuations has been removed with Moving
 Average filter, successfully. As a result of filtration process, non-seasonal time series of water surface area of
 Salt Lake were obtained. It is understood from the non-seasonal time series that the water surface area showed
 variability between 2000 and 2010 and after 2010 it is stable until 2014. In order to explain the variability,
 meteorological data (precipitation and temperature) of the surrounding area has been acquired from the related
 service. The cross-correlation analyses has been performed with the movement of the water surface area and
 meteorological time series. As a result of analysis, the relationship between water surface changes in Salt Lake
 and meteorological data have correlated up to 80%. Consequently, several conclusion have been detected that
 the topography of the region play a direct role of the correlation coefficients and the water surface changes are
 effected from the environmental events that is occurred in the south of Salt Lake sub-Basin.