Title: Temporal and Spatial Variations of Snow Cover and Its Effect Factors in the Nam Co Basin,Tibetan Plateau,2007-2011
Abstract: Snow over the Tibetan Plateau(TP)is an essential water source of major Asian rivers and greatly influences water availability in the downstream areas.The Nam Co basin is one of the most characteristic lake basins in TP,where the snow accumulation and its spatial pattern is an important indicator of the local climate and plays a crucial role in hydrological cycle.In this paper,the accuracies of two kinds of MODIS snow products were verified by in situ data,firstly.Furthermore, based on the MODIS data,the spatial changes of accumulation and ablation of snow cover,as well as snow cover days(SCD)and snow cover area(SCA),in Nam Co basin were analyzed.Combined the observed data with automatic weather data,the temporal variation of snow cover elements in Nam Co basin,such as snow depth(SD), snow water equivalent(SWE),snow density and SCD,were discussed.Finally,the relationships between snow cover elements and climate factors, such as temperature,precipitation and wind speed, were also discussed.The result shows:(1)the snow identification accuracy of MOD10A2is higher than that of MOD10A1.However,its total identification accuracy is lower than that of MOD10A1;(2)there are spatial variations of accumulation and ablation of snow cover in Nam Co basin.The trend for the snow cover accumulation in the Nam Co basin is obviously clear,increasing from southeast to northwest of the basin,but the snow cover ablation has an opposite trend.Hence,the SCD in the south part of Nam Co basin is the maximum and that of the west part is the minimum;(3)the temporal variation of snow cover elements presents double peaks,generally in October and November or January.All kinds of snow cover elements are strongly influenced by temperature and precipitation from October to November,while from December to March,they are influenced by temperature. The average annual snow cover ratio is 21.9% of the total basin,with 50.6%in the east(due to the lake effect)and only 18.3%in other area of the basin.Lake effect has a distinct impact on the Nam Co basin,resulting in the mean SD and SWE all higher than those in the surrounding stations,such as Damxung,Nagchu and Baingoin.
Publication Year: 2013
Publication Date: 2013-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 2
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