Seasonal thermal regime and climatic trends in lakes of the Tibetan highlands

Georgiy Kirillin,Tom Shatwell,Lijuan Wen

doi:10.5194/hess-21-1895-2017

Abstract

Abstract. The hydrology of the lake-rich Tibetan Plateau is important for the global climate, yet little is known about the thermal regime of Tibetan lakes due to scant data. We (i) investigated the characteristic seasonal temperature patterns and recent trends in the thermal and stratification regimes of lakes on the Tibetan Plateau and (ii) tested the performance of the one-dimensional lake parameterization scheme FLake for the Tibetan lake system. For this purpose, we combined 3 years of in situ lake temperature measurements, several decades of satellite observations, and the global reanalysis data. We chose the two largest freshwater Tibetan lakes, Ngoring and Gyaring, as study sites. The lake model FLake faithfully reproduced the specific features of the high-altitude lakes and was subsequently applied to reconstruct the vertically resolved heat transport in both lakes during the last 4 decades. The model suggested that Ngoring and Gyaring were ice-covered for about 6 months and stratified in summer for about 4 months per year with a short spring overturn and a longer autumn overturn. In summer the surface mixed boundary layer extended to 6–8 m of depth and was about 20 % shallower in the more turbid Gyaring. The thermal regime of the transparent Ngoring responded more strongly to atmospheric forcing than Gyaring, where the higher turbidity damped the response. According to the reanalysis data, air temperatures and humidity have increased, whereas solar radiation has decreased, since the 1970s. Surprisingly, the modeled mean lake temperatures did not change, nor did the phenology of the ice cover or stratification. Lake surface temperatures in summer increased only marginally. The reason is that the increase in air temperature was offset by the decrease in radiation, probably due to increasing humidity. This study demonstrates that air temperature trends are not directly coupled to lake temperatures and underscores the importance of shortwave radiation for the thermal regime of high-altitude lakes.

Highlights

The hydrological regime of the Tibetan highlands is extremely complex and highly sensitive to climate changes (Gu et al, 2005; Ma et al, 2012; Yang et al, 2014)
A cold semiarid continental climate prevails in the lake basin, and the long-term (1953–2012) monthly mean air temperature varies from 7.7 ◦C in July to −16.2 ◦C in January, with an annual mean of −3.7 ◦C (Li et al, 2015); the average annual precipitation is 321.4 mm
FLake demonstrated good abilities to capture the thermal characteristics of high-altitude lakes

Summary

Introduction

The hydrological regime of the Tibetan highlands is extremely complex and highly sensitive to climate changes (Gu et al, 2005; Ma et al, 2012; Yang et al, 2014). The particular climatic environment of the Tibetan Plateau, with low air pressure and intense solar radiation, creates a unique land–atmosphere interaction (Ma et al, 2009) where the lake system is a crucial component of the regional heat and mass balance (Liu et al, 2009; Gerken et al, 2013; Li et al, 2015; Wen et al, 2015; Dai et al, 2016). Changes in the regional water budget of the Tibetan Plateau driven by global warming are of key importance for climatic changes on continental scales

Methods

Results

Conclusion