High-resolution modeling of glacier meltwater contributions to lake water level fluctuations in the Baishui River Glacier No.1 basin

Summary: Glacial lakes on the Tibetan Plateau are highly sensitive to cryosphere-hydrosphere interactions under climate change. This study applies a high-resolution framework to quantify sub-daily glacier meltwater contributions and hydrological impacts using Baishui River Glacier No. 1 and Blue Moo...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Shoukat Ali Shah, Songtao Ai
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2025-09-01
Series:iScience
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Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004225015822
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Summary:Summary: Glacial lakes on the Tibetan Plateau are highly sensitive to cryosphere-hydrosphere interactions under climate change. This study applies a high-resolution framework to quantify sub-daily glacier meltwater contributions and hydrological impacts using Baishui River Glacier No. 1 and Blue Moon Lake Valley as a representative case. A gradient boosting machine model simulated hourly glacier melt from meteorological inputs, capturing episodic events and diurnal variability with high accuracy (RMSE = 0.0100 m/h against observed melt). Cross-correlation revealed an average 3.99-h lag between glacier melt and lake-level response, indicating delayed routing. Feature importance analysis identified air temperature and solar radiation as dominant melt drivers. Glacier meltwater contributed 87.62% of positive lake inflow, highlighting the basin’s dependence on cryospheric inputs. This integrated approach—combining high-frequency sensing, machine learning, and lag-time analysis—advances the characterization of glacier-lake dynamics and supports more accurate hydrological prediction in glacierized mountain basins.
ISSN:2589-0042