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Late Quaternary climatic influences on megalake Jilantai–Hetao, North China, inferred from a water balance model

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Abstract

Water levels of the lakes in the Jilantai–Hetao basin in the great northern bend of the Yellow River have fluctuated dramatically during the late Quaternary in response to changes in climate and basin morphology. A water balance calculation for various lake elevations of the Jilantai–Hetao paleolake (JHL) is therefore needed to constrain the relative importance of these factors in determining lake level changes. The possible paleolake surface areas and volumes for different paleoshorelines were determined using modern topography. The results indicate that at its highest early shoreline (1080 m), the paleolake was >34,000 km2 in area and had a volume of ~16,000 × 108 m3. A simple lake water balance model (LWBM) indicates that under modern climatic conditions, the Yellow River runoff is insufficient to maintain the paleolakes, even at the lowest elevation (i.e., 1050 m). The water deficit is 130.96 × 108 m3 at an elevation of 1080 m. The results indicate that precipitation would need to increase by 12 % at the present temperature, or that the temperature would need to decrease by 1.8 °C with the present precipitation to produce Yellow River runoff that satisfies the JHL water volumes. The soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) model and LWBM were coupled to model the Yellow River runoff required to maintain the JHL. Considering that the paleolake most likely formed during the last interglacial [marine isotopic stage 5e (MIS 5e)], with a temperature 2–4 °C higher than the present day, approximately 24–42 % more precipitation was required in the Yellow River basin to maintain the paleolake at the 1080 m lake level. Paleoclimatic simulation results indicate a much higher precipitation during MIS 5e than that at the present, and the paleoclimatic conditions of MIS 5e had the potential to form and sustain the JHL. From these results, we conclude that climatic factors were critical in the formation of the largest and oldest paleolake, and that they must be considered in concert with tectonically-driven shifts in the paleolake basin in order to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the history of the JHL.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Fan Yuxin, Fan Tianlai and Xu Xiang for their assistance in the field, and the anonymous referees for their detailed and insightful comments which considerably improving the manuscript. This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41471023).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Western China’s Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), Lanzhou University, 222 South Tianshui Road, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Guoxiao Wei & Zhiguo Rao

  2. School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, 222 South Tianshui Road, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Guoxiao Wei, Zhiguo Rao, Jun Dong, Ning Yue, Huihui Dang & Yang Dong

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  1. Guoxiao Wei
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Wei, G., Rao, Z., Dong, J. et al. Late Quaternary climatic influences on megalake Jilantai–Hetao, North China, inferred from a water balance model. J Paleolimnol 55, 223–240 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-015-9876-9

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