Growth of the Sayram Lake and retreat of its water-supplying glaciers in the Tianshan Mountains from 1972 to 2011
CHENG Weiming1*, WANG Nan1,2, ZHAO Shangmin3, FANG Yue1,2,4, ZHAO Min1,2
1 State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; 2 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; 3 Department of Surveying and Mapping, College of Mining Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China; 4 Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China
Growth of the Sayram Lake and retreat of its water-supplying glaciers in the Tianshan Mountains from 1972 to 2011
CHENG Weiming1*, WANG Nan1,2, ZHAO Shangmin3, FANG Yue1,2,4, ZHAO Min1,2
1 State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; 2 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; 3 Department of Surveying and Mapping, College of Mining Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China; 4 Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China
摘要 Inland lakes and alpine glaciers are important constituents of water resources in arid and semiarid regions. Understanding their variations is critical for both an accurate evaluation of the dynamic changes of water resources and the retrieval of climatic information. On the basis of earlier researches, this study investigated the growth of the Sayram Lake and the retreat of its water-supplying glaciers in the Tianshan Mountains using long-term sequenced remote sensing images. Our results show that over the past 40 years, the surface area and the water level of the lake has increased by 12.0±0.3 km2 and 2.8 m, respectively, and the area of its water-supplying glaciers has decreased continuously since the early 1970s with a total reduction of about –2.13±0.03 km2. Our study has indicative significance to the research of regional climate change.
Abstract: Inland lakes and alpine glaciers are important constituents of water resources in arid and semiarid regions. Understanding their variations is critical for both an accurate evaluation of the dynamic changes of water resources and the retrieval of climatic information. On the basis of earlier researches, this study investigated the growth of the Sayram Lake and the retreat of its water-supplying glaciers in the Tianshan Mountains using long-term sequenced remote sensing images. Our results show that over the past 40 years, the surface area and the water level of the lake has increased by 12.0±0.3 km2 and 2.8 m, respectively, and the area of its water-supplying glaciers has decreased continuously since the early 1970s with a total reduction of about –2.13±0.03 km2. Our study has indicative significance to the research of regional climate change.
This work was financially supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (2015CB954101), the National Science and Technology Basic Special Project (2011FY11040-2), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41171332, 41571388), and the Surveying and Mapping Geoinformation Nonprofit Specific Project (201512033).
引用本文:
CHENG Weiming, WANG Nan, ZHAO Shangmin, FANG Yue, ZHAO Min. Growth of the Sayram Lake and retreat of its water-supplying glaciers in the Tianshan Mountains from 1972 to 2011[J]. 干旱区科学, 2016, 8(1): 13-22.
CHENG Weiming, WANG Nan, ZHAO Shangmin, FANG Yue, ZHAO Min. Growth of the Sayram Lake and retreat of its water-supplying glaciers in the Tianshan Mountains from 1972 to 2011. Journal of Arid Land, 2016, 8(1): 13-22.
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2016, Vol. 8 
