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Hydrothermal pattern of frozen soil in Nam Co lake basin, the Tibetan Plateau

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Environmental Geology

Abstract

Hydrothermal processes and the regimes of frozen soil formed in alpine regions with glaciers and lake area are complex and important for ecological environment but have not been studied in Tibet. Based on soil temperature and moisture data from October 2005 to September 2006 collected in the Nam Co lake basin, Tibetan Plateau (TP), those questions were discussed. The mean annual air temperature was −3.4°C with 8 months below 0°C. Air and soil temperature varied between −25.3~13.1°C and −10.3~8.8°C, respectively. Soil moisture variations in the active layer were small with the minimum value of 1.4%, but were influenced greatly by snowmelt, rainfall and evaporation, varying up to 53.8%. The active layer froze later, thawed earlier and was thinner, however, the lower altitude limit of permafrost is higher than that in most areas of TP. The effects of soil moisture (unfrozen water content) on soil temperature, which were estimated through proposed models, were more significant near ground surface than the other layers. The surface soil temperature decreased with snowcover, the effect of cold snow meltwater infiltration on soil thermal conditions was negligible, however, the effect of rainfall infiltration was evident causing thermal disruptions.

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Acknowledgments

This research is supported by the “National Basic Research Program of China” (No. 2005CB422003), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (40571037) and “the Talent program” of the Chinese Academy of Sciences as well. The authors would like to thank their colleagues and the workers in Nam Co Monitoring and Research Station for Multispheric Interactions. The authors would like to thank anonymous reviewers for their comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, CAS, Shuangqing Road 18, Haidian District, Beijing, 100085, China

    Keming Tian, Jingshi Liu, Shichang Kang, Fei Zhang, Qianggong Zhang & Wei Lu

  2. State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Science, CAREERI, CAS, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Shichang Kang

  3. Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100039, China

    Keming Tian, Qianggong Zhang & Wei Lu

  4. Land and Soil Consultancy Services, Nelson, 7011, New Zealand

    Iain B. Campbell

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  1. Keming Tian
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  2. Jingshi Liu
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  3. Shichang Kang
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  4. Iain B. Campbell
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  5. Fei Zhang
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  6. Qianggong Zhang
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  7. Wei Lu
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Correspondence to Jingshi Liu.

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Tian, K., Liu, J., Kang, S. et al. Hydrothermal pattern of frozen soil in Nam Co lake basin, the Tibetan Plateau. Environ Geol 57, 1775–1784 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00254-008-1462-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00254-008-1462-2

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