Changing inland lakes responding to climate warming in Northeastern Tibetan Plateau

The main portion of Tibetan Plateau has experienced statistically significant warming over the past 50 years, especially in cold seasons. This paper aims to identify and characterize the dynamics of inland lakes that located in the hinterland of Tibetan Plateau responding to climate change. We compared satellite imageries in late 1970s and early 1990s with recent to inventory and track changes in lakes after three decades of rising temperatures in the region. It showed warm and dry trend in climate with significant accelerated increasing annual mean temperature over the last 30 years, however, decreasing periodically annual precipitation and no obvious trend in potential evapotranspiration during the same period. Our analysis indicated widespread declines in inland lake's abundance and area in the whole origin of the Yellow River and southeastern origin of the Yangtze River. In contrast, the western and northern origin of the Yangtze River revealed completely reverse change. The regional lake surface area decreased by 11,499 ha or 1.72% from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, and increased by 6,866 ha or 1.04% from the early 1990s to 2004. Shrinking inland lakes may become a common feature in the discontinuous permafrost regions as a consequence of warming climate and thawing permafrost. Furthermore, obvious expanding were found in continuous permafrost regions due to climate warming and glacier retreating. The results may provide information for the scientific recognition of the responding events to the climate change recorded by the inland lakes.