Changing Pattern of Water Level Trends in Eurasian Endorheic Lakes as a Response to the Recent Climate Variability

Abstract

Lake level is a sensitive integral indicator of climate change on regional scales, especially in enclosed endorheic basins. Eurasia contains the largest endorheic zone with several large terminal lakes, whose water levels recently underwent remarkable variations. To address the patterns of these variations and their links to the climate change, we investigated the variability of levels in 15 lakes of three neighboring endorheic regions—Central Asia, Tibetan Plateau, and Mongolian Plateau. Satellite altimetry revealed a heterogeneous pattern among the regions during 1992–2018: lake levels increased significantly in Central Asia and the Tibetan Plateau but decreased on the Mongolian Plateau. The shifts to the increasing trend were detected since 1997 in Central Asia, since 1998 in the southern part of the Tibetan Plateau, and since 2005 in its northern part. The shift in air temperatures around 1997 and the precipitation shifts around 1998 and 2004 contributed to the trend’s turning points, with precipitation being the major contributor to the heterogeneous pattern of lake levels. Our findings reveal the linkage of the heterogeneous pattern of lake levels to climatic factors in the endorheic basins, providing a further understanding of the hydrological regime in the Eurasian endorheic zone and its sensitivity to climate change.