Prediction and Analysis of Lake Ice Phenology Dynamics Under Future Climate Scenarios Across the Inner Tibetan Plateau

Abstract

AbstractHow climate change influences lake ice phenology is important in understanding the climate‐lake interactions. This study investigates the response of lake ice phenology to future climate scenarios. Thirty‐five lakes in the Tibetan Plateau were studied. Firstly, we applied a random forest (RF) model to simulate lake ice condition under different representative concentration pathways (RCPs). The results of the virtual experiments show that lake ice freeze‐up start date (FUSD) and break‐up end date (BUED) are well simulated by the RF model, with R2FUSD > 0.91 under different RCPs, and R2BUED > 0.84, except in RCP2.6 (R2 = 0.74). Secondly, two non‐parametric methods (Mann‐Kendall and Sen's slope estimator) were used for analyzing the trends in lake ice phenology and its response to various emission scenarios. Lake ice phenology was largely affected by temperature changes under different RCPs, and it had a larger inter‐annual variability in the early period (2002–2050) than in the later period (2050–2099). FUSD of 35 lakes delayed by an average of 0.01, 0.04, and 0.04 days/yr from 2002 to 2098 under RCP4.5, RCP6.0, and RCP8.5, whereas BUED advanced by an average of 0.04, 0.11, and 0.21 days/yr from 2003 to 2099. Both delays in FUSD and advances in BUED contributed to shortened average ice duration of 35 lakes, which shortened by 0.05, 0.14, and 0.25 days/yr from 2002 to 2098 under RCP4.5, RCP6.0, and RCP8.5, respectively. These findings could help to tackle the impacts of climate change on the lake systems.