Thermal regime of a thermokarst lake and its influence on permafrost, Beiluhe Basin, Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau

Zhanju Lin, Fujun Niu, Zhiying Xu, Jian Xu and Ping Wang

Permafrost and Periglacial Processes, 2010, vol. 21, issue 4, 315-324

Abstract: A typical 2‐m deep thermokarst lake was studied in the Beiluhe Basin on the Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau. Lakeshore retrogression, water temperatures, and ground temperatures beneath and around the lake were monitored. About 80 per cent of the lakeshore edge collapsed each year with a maximum rate of about 1.8 m from August 2007 to October 2008. The warm season was the main period of shoreline collapse, especially from August to October. Ice forms in the lake towards the end of October and reaches its maximum thickness of about 0.7 m by the end of the cold season. The thaw depth at the lakeshore edge is about 0.7 m greater than in the adjacent terrain, while any pre‐existing permafrost below its centre has thawed entirely. Overall, the high degree of disturbance associated with the thermokarst lake is shown by mean annual ground temperatures beneath it that are more than 5°C higher than in the surrounding terrain at the same depth. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp.692

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:perpro:v:21:y:2010:i:4:p:315-324

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Permafrost and Periglacial Processes from John Wiley & Sons
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().