Spatiotemporal pattern of glacier mass balance in the Tibetan Plateau interior area over the past 40 years

The Tibetan Plateau interior basin (ITP) can be regarded as the intermediate zone between balanced or slight positive mass balance and pronounced mass loss. As an endorheic basin, glacier meltwater plays an important role in adjusting lake levels and river runoff. The spatiotemporal pattern of glacier mass balance in the ITP has been estimated from TOPO DEM, SRTM, and TerraSAR-X/TanDEM-X imageries from ∼1970 – ∼2013. Glacier mass balance was negative in the southeastern ITP, moderately negative in the central ITP, and neutral in the northwestern ITP. In addition, glacier mass loss accelerated in the southeastern ITP, and decelerated, even shifted from negative to positive, in the northwestern ITP between the periods of ∼1970 – 2000 and 2000 – ∼2013. Assuming that all the glacier meltwater was drained to the lakes, the glacier mass loss was equivalent to approximately 15.3 ± 8.1 % of the total lake water storage increase in the early 21st century. Although climate changes are consistent with the spatial pattern of glacier mass loss, the relationship between the heterogeneous spatiotemporal pattern of mass balance and climate change needs more detailed investigations.