Observed Trends of Climate and River Discharge in Mongolia’s Selenga Sub-Basin of the Lake Baikal Basin

Abstract

Mongolia’s Selenga sub-basin of the Lake Baikal basin is spatially extensive, with pronounced environmental gradients driven primarily by precipitation and air temperature on broad scales. Therefore, it is an ideal region to examine the dynamics of the climate and the hydrological system. This study investigated the annual precipitation, air temperature, and river discharge variability at five selected stations of the sub-basin by using Mann-Kendall (MK), Innovative trend analysis method (ITAM), and Sen’s slope estimator test. The result showed that the trend of annual precipitation was slightly increasing in Ulaanbaatar (Z = 0.71), Erdenet (Z = 0.13), and Tsetserleg (Z = 0.26) stations. Whereas Murun (Z = 2.45) and Sukhbaatar (Z = 1.06) stations showed a significant increasing trend. And also, the trend of annual air temperature in Ulaanbaatar (Z = 5.88), Erdenet (Z = 3.87), Tsetserleg (Z = 4.38), Murun (Z = 4.77), and Sukhbaatar (Z = 2.85) was sharply increased. The average air temperature has significantly increased by 1.4 °C in the past 38 years. This is very high in the semi-arid zone of central Asia. The river discharge showed a significantly decreasing trend during the study period years. It has been apparent since 1995. The findings of this paper could help researchers to understand the annual variability of precipitation, air temperature, and river discharge over the study region and, therefore, become a foundation for further studies.