Abstract
Abstract. Nam-Co Lake is the largest saltwater lake in Tibet and less influenced by human activity. In order to study the change of water level of Nam-Co Lake over the past decades and the impacts of climate change on the region, this paper combined height measurements of ERS-1, ERS-2, ENVISAT, ICESat-2 and CryoSat-2. We found that the water level of Nam Co Lake experienced three periods of change, namely, slightly decreasing period (1992–1993), significantly increasing period (1995–2005), and stable period (2006–2015). The change is consistent with the change of meteorological factors in the Nam-Co Basin. The increase of glacier melt water and precipitation in the basin is considered to be the cause of the overall trend of water level.
Highlights
Lakes are sensitive regions to global environmental change, and the Tibetan Plateau is a typical area of global environmental change
Many scholars have carried out a lot of research about rivers and lakes by the use of the satellite altimetry data, but for the typical lake Nam-Co Lake in the Tibetan Plateau, there are only very few researches for long time series water level study based on satellite altimetry data
In order to make up for this deficiency, this paper extracted water boundaries of Nam-Co Lake based on the optical data of Landsat satellites and analyzed changes of water level based on satellite altimetry data of ERS-1, ERS-2, ENVISAT, ICESat-2 and CryoSat-2
Summary
Lakes are sensitive regions to global environmental change, and the Tibetan Plateau is a typical area of global environmental change. Phan et al (2012) used the ICESat-2 satellite altimetry data to monitor the water level changes of 154 lakes in the Qinghai Tibet Plateau during 2003~2009, analyzed the annual water level trend, and calculated the annual volume change. Many scholars have carried out a lot of research about rivers and lakes by the use of the satellite altimetry data, but for the typical lake Nam-Co Lake in the Tibetan Plateau, there are only very few researches for long time series water level study based on satellite altimetry data. In order to make up for this deficiency, this paper extracted water boundaries of Nam-Co Lake based on the optical data of Landsat satellites and analyzed changes of water level based on satellite altimetry data of ERS-1, ERS-2, ENVISAT, ICESat-2 and CryoSat-2
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