Publication Date:
2016-06-22
Description:
Most lakes in the interior Tibetan Plateau have expanded rapidly since the late 1990s. Because of a lack of observations, lake water balances and their changes are far from well understood. Evaporation is a component of the lake water balance, and this study quantifies its magnitude, decadal change, and its contribution to the water balance changes in Lake Nam Co, one of the largest lakes on the Tibetan Plateau (with an area of approximately 2000 km 2 and a mean depth of approximately 40 m). The lake temperature and the evaporation are simulated by the Flake model. The simulation results are validated against observed lake temperature profile from 2013 and MODIS lake surface temperature data from 2000-2014. The simulated latent heat flux and sensible heat flux are validated against Bowen ratio-derived estimates for 2013. Based on the validated simulation results, the long-term mean annual evaporation is approximately 832 ± 69 mm, and this value is much less than the potential evaporation estimated using the Penman-Monteith equation. The annual evaporation from 1980-2014 displays a complex decadal oscillation, mainly due to the changes in energy-related terms (air temperature and radiation). The mean lake evaporation since the late 1990s is greater than previous periods; thus, this change in evaporation has suppressed the recent expansion of Nam Co.
Print ISSN:
0148-0227
Topics:
Geosciences
,
Physics
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