Analysis of lake level changes in Nam Co in central Tibet utilizing synergistic satellite altimetry and optical imagery

The fluctuations of closed basin lakes on the Tibetan Plateau are a valuable record of climate change induced water balance alterations within the catchments. Since these basins are remote and hard to access, multisensoral remote sensing is a valuable method to gather the necessary water budget components with appropriate spatial coverage and with high temporal resolutions. Thus the lake level elevation changes of the central Tibetan lake Nam Co were examined in example by a comparison of satellite altimetry (RA-2/ENVISAT, GFO radar altimeters and GLAS/ICESat laser altimeter for the period 2000–2009) and the evaluation of a time series of optical satellite data dating back to 1976 (Landsat) and 1965 (Corona) in order to validate hydrological water budget modelling results. The combination of all three altimeters revealed a rising trend of lake level on average by 0.31 m/year in the period 2000–2009 which corresponds to a total volume change of 6.2 km3. This is in a good agreement with simulated average lake level rise of 0.35 m/year obtained from distributed hydrological modelling (Krause et al., 2010). The movements of lakeshore measured on the satellite imagery confirm the trend revealed by the altimetry data and they also indicate the rising trend since 1965. While GFO provides a dense time series of data the more accurate ENVISAT/RA-2 data unfortunately feature large data gaps over Tibet. The measurements from time limited campaigns of ICESat validate the results of radar altimetry and they provide unlike radar altimeters a valid height over lake ice during winter and spring period. The results show that the presented approach is a valuable contribution to understand the impact of changing climate on the hydrology of Tibetan lakes.