Observing Multisphere Hydrological Changes in the Largest River Basin of the Tibetan Plateau

作者：Lei Wang, Lan Cuo, Dongliang Luo, Fengge Su, Qinghua Ye, Tandong Yao, Jing Zhou, Xiuping Li, Ning Li, He Sun, Lei Liu, Yuanwei Wang, Tian Zeng, Zhidan Hu, Ruishun Liu, Chenhao Chai, Guangpeng Wang, Xiaoyang Zhong, Xiaoyu Guo, Haoqiang Zhao, Huabiao Zhao, Wei Yang · 发表于：Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society · 年份：2022 · DOI：10.1175/bams-d-21-0217.1 · 被引用次数：24 · 研究领域：Cryospheric studies and observations、Climate change and permafrost、Arctic and Antarctic ice dynamics

Abstract Upper Brahmaputra (UB) is the largest (∼240,000 km 2 ) river basin of the Tibetan Plateau, where hydrological processes are highly sensitive to climate change. However, constrained by difficult access and sparse in situ observations, the variations in precipitation, glaciers, frozen ground, and vegetation across the UB basin remain largely unknown, and consequently the impacts of climate change on streamflow cannot be accurately assessed. To fill this gap, this project aims to establish a basinwide, large-scale observational network (that includes hydrometeorology, glacier, frozen ground, and vegetation observations), which helps quantify the UB runoff processes under climate–cryosphere–vegetation changes. At present, a multisphere observational network has been established throughout the catchment: 1) 12 stations with custom-built weighing automatic rain/snow meters and temperature probes to obtain elevation-dependent gradients; 2) 9 stations with soil moisture/temperature observations at four layers (10, 40, 80, 120 cm) covering Alpine meadow, grasslands, shrub, and forest to measure vegetation (biomass and vegetation types) and soil (physical properties) simultaneously; 3) 34 sets of probes to monitor frozen ground temperatures from 4,500 to 5,200 m elevation (100-m intervals), and two observation systems to monitor water and heat transfer processes in frozen ground at Xuegela (5,278 m) and Mayoumula (5,256 m) Mountains, for improved mapping of permafrost and acti...