The long-term evolution of lakes on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) could be observed from Landsat series of satellite data since the 1970s. However, the seasonal cycles of lakes on the TP have received little attention due to high cloud contamination of the commonly-used optical images. In this study, for the first time, the seasonal cycle of lakes on the TP were detected using Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data with a high repeat cycle. A total of approximately 6000 Level-1 scenes were obtained that covered all large lakes (> 50 km2) in the study area. The images were extracted from stripmap (SM) and interferometric wide swath (IW) modes that had a pixel spacing of 40 m in the range and azimuth directions. The lake boundaries extracted from Sentinel-1 data using the algorithm developed in this study were in good agreement with in-situ measurements of lake shoreline, lake outlines delineated from the corresponding Landsat images in 2015 and lake levels for Qinghai Lake. Upon analysis, it was found that the seasonal cycles of lakes exhibited drastically different patterns across the TP. For example, large size lakes (> 100 km2) reached their peaks in August−September while lakes with areas of 50−100 km2 reached their peaks in early June−July. The peaks of seasonal cycles for endorheic lakes were more pronounced than those for exorheic lakes with flat peaks, and glacier-fed lakes with additional supplies of water exhibited delayed peaks in their seasonal cycles relative to those of non-glacier-fed lakes. Large-scale atmospheric circulation systems, such as the westerlies, Indian summer monsoon, transition in between, and East Asian summer monsoon, were also found to affect the seasonal cycles of lakes. The results of this study suggest that Sentinel-1 SAR data are a powerful tool that can be used to fill gaps in intra-annual lake observations.
ZHANG Yu, ZHANG Guoqing
There are three types of glacial lakes: supraglacial lakes, lakes attached to the end of the glacier and lakes not attached to the end of the glacier. Based on this classification, the following properties are studied: the variation in the number and area of glacial lakes in different basins in the Third Pole region, the changes in extent in terms of size and area, distance from glaciers, the differences in area changes between lakes with and without the supply of glacial melt water runoff, the characteristics of changes in the glacial lake area with respect to elevation, etc. Data source: Landsat TM/ETM+ 1990, 2000, 2010. The data were visually interpreted, which included checking and editing by comparing the original image with Google Earth images when the area was greater than 0.003 square kilometres. The data were applied to glacial lake changes and glacial lake outburst flood assessments in the Third Pole region. Data type: Vector data. Projected Coordinate System: Albers Conical Equal Area.
ZHANG Guoqing
The continuous advancement of SAR interferometry technology makes it possible to obtain multitemporal DEMs with high precision in the glacial area. In particular, in 2000, the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) led by NASA provided DEM data covering the area from 56ºS to 60ºN; the TanDEM-X bistatic SAR interferometry system of DLR could provide the global DEM data with high resolution and precision. These high-quality, large-coverage SAR interferometry data, as well as published DEM data products, provided valuable information for using the multitemporal DEMs to detect changes in ice thickness. The temporal coverage of the ice thickness variation data of typical glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau was from 2000 to 2013, covering Puruogangri and the west Qilian Mountains with a spatial resolution of 30 meters. Using TanDEM-X bistatic InSAR data and a C-band SRTM DEM, the differential radar interferometry method was first used to generate a TanDEM-X DEM with high precision. Then, based on the precise registration of DEM, the DEM data obtained in different periods were compared. Lastly, the ice thickness changes were estimated. The format of the data set was GeoTIFF, and each typical glacier ice thickness change was stored in a folder. For details of the data, please refer to the Ice elevation changes for typical glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau - Data Description.
JIANG Liming
The proportion data set of daily cloudless MODIS snow cover area in babaohe river basin (2008.1.1-2014.6.1) was obtained after cloud removal processing using a cloud removal algorithm based on cubic spline function interpolation on the basis of daily cloudless MODIS snow cover product-mod10a1 (tang zhiguang, 2013). This data set adopts the projection method of UTM (horizontal axis isometric cutting cylinder), with a spatial resolution of 500m, and provides Daily Snow Albedo daily-sad results for the babao river basin.The data set is a daily file from January 1, 2008 to June 1, 2014.Each file is the snow albedo result of the day, with a value of 0-100 (%), is the ENVI standard file, and the naming rule is: mod10a1.ayyyyddd_h25v05_snow_sad_grid_2d_reproj_babaohe_nocloud.img, where YYYY represents the year, DDD stands for Julian day (001-365/366).The file can be opened directly with ENVI or ARCMAP software. The original MODIS snow cover data products processed by declouding are derived from MOD10A1 products processed by the us national snow and ice data center (NSIDC). This data set is in HDF format and USES sinusoidal projection. The attributes of the cloud-free MODIS albedo data set (2008.1.1-2014.1.1) in babaohe river basin are composed of the spatial and temporal resolution, projection information and data format of the dataset.
WANG Jian, PAN Haizhu
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