Open AccessGrowing season carries stronger contributions to albedo dynamics on the Tibetan plateau
Author(s) -
Lide Tian,
Jiquan Chen,
Yangjian Zhang
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0180559
Subject(s) - plateau (mathematics) , dynamics (music) , albedo (alchemy) , biology , physics , mathematics , art , mathematical analysis , performance art , art history , acoustics
The Tibetan Plateau has experienced higher-than-global-average climate warming in recent decades, resulting in many significant changes in ecosystem structure and function. Among them is albedo , which bridges the causes and consequences of land surface processes and climate. The plateau is covered by snow/ice and vegetation in the non-growing season (nGS) and growing season (GS), respectively. Based on the MODIS products, we investigated snow/ice cover and vegetation greenness in relation to the spatiotemporal changes of albedo on the Tibetan Plateau from 2000 through 2013. A synchronous relationship was found between the change in GSNDVI and GSalbedo over time and across the Tibetan landscapes. We found that the annual average albedo had a decreasing trend, but that the albedo had slightly increased during the nGS and decreased during the GS. Across the landscapes, the nGS albedo fluctuated in a synchronous pattern with snow/ice cover. Temporally, monthly snow/ice coverage also had a high correspondence with albedo , except in April and October. We detected clear dependencies of albedo on elevation. With the rise in altitude, the nGS albedo decreased below 4000 m, but increased for elevations of 4500–5500 m. Above 5500 m, the nGS albedo decreased, which was in accordance with the decreased amount of snow/ice coverage and the increased soil moisture on the plateau. More importantly, the decreasing albedo in the most recent decade appeared to be caused primarily by lowered growing season albedo .