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photo of Zheng Duan on Lund webpage

Zheng Duan

Senior lecturer

photo of Zheng Duan on Lund webpage

Variations of Lake Ice Phenology on the Tibetan Plateau From 2001 to 2017 Based on MODIS Data

Author

  • Yu Cai
  • Chang Qing Ke
  • Xingong Li
  • Guoqing Zhang
  • Zheng Duan
  • Hoonyol Lee

Summary, in English

Lake ice is a robust indicator of climate change. The availability of information contained in Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer daily snow products from 2000 to 2017 could be greatly improved after cloud removal by gap filling. Thresholds based on open water pixel numbers are used to extract the freezeup start and breakup end dates for 58 lakes on the Tibetan Plateau (TP); 18 lakes are also selected to extract the freezeup end and breakup start dates. The lake ice durations are further calculated based on freezeup and breakup dates. Lakes on the TP begin to freezeup in late October and all the lakes start the ice cover period in mid-January of the following year. In late March, some lakes begin to break up, and all the lakes end the ice cover period in early July. Generally, the lakes in the northern Inner-TP have earlier freezeup dates and later breakup dates (i.e., longer ice cover durations) than those in the southern Inner-TP. Over 17 years, the mean ice cover duration of 58 lakes is 157.78 days, 18 (31%) lakes have a mean extending rate of 1.11 day/year, and 40 (69%) lakes have a mean shortening rate of 0.80 day/year. Geographical location and climate conditions determine the spatial heterogeneity of the lake ice phenology, especially the ones of breakup dates, while the physico-chemical characteristics mainly affect the freezeup dates of the lake ice in this study. Ice cover duration is affected by both climatic and lake specific physico-chemical factors, which can reflect the climatic and environmental change for lakes on the TP.

Publishing year

2019-01-27

Language

English

Pages

825-843

Publication/Series

Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres

Volume

124

Issue

2

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell

Topic

  • Other Earth and Related Environmental Sciences

Keywords

  • climate change
  • freezeup/breakup dates
  • lake ice phenology
  • MODIS
  • Tibetan Plateau

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 2169-8996