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Classification of Tibetan lakes based on variations in seasonal lake water temperature

  • Article
  • Geography
  • Published:
Chinese Science Bulletin

Abstract

Widespread lakes on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) are valuable archives for investigating climate and environment changes, which could provide essential information on the mechanisms of past climate changes on the TP and their interaction with the global climate systems. However, there is a lack of in-depth investigation of modern limnological processes in the Tibetan lakes, which hampers the understanding of paleolimnological records and lake ecosystem succession. In this study, we performed continuous temperature monitoring at two lakes, Bangong Co, a freshwater lake in the western TP, and Dagze Co, a brackish lake in the central TP, in order to characterize the patterns of seasonal temperature variability, stratification, and mixing. Temperature data for an entire hydrological year demonstrate that Bangong Co is a dimictic lake and that Dagze Co is a meromictic lake. The higher salinity in the deep water at Dagze Co prevents the lake from overturning completely, and this finding is supported by simulations using a physical limnological model Lake Analyzer. Continuous lake water temperature monitoring provides fundamental data for classifying Tibetan lakes, as well as the hydrological basis for understanding their paleolimnological records and ecosystem succession.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41072120, 41321061). The authors thank Prof. Tian Lide for providing meteorological data of NASDE, Dr. Wang Junbo for providing bathymetry data of Bangong Co, and Zhang Hongbo for his help in processing the meteorological data.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Land Surface Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Mingda Wang, Juzhi Hou & Yanbin Lei

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Mingda Wang

Authors
  1. Mingda Wang
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  2. Juzhi Hou
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  3. Yanbin Lei
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Correspondence to Juzhi Hou.

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Wang, M., Hou, J. & Lei, Y. Classification of Tibetan lakes based on variations in seasonal lake water temperature. Chin. Sci. Bull. 59, 4847–4855 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-014-0588-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-014-0588-8

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