Comprehensive estimation of lake volume changes on the Tibetan Plateau during 1976–2019 and basin-wide glacier contribution

Volume changes and water balances of the lakes on Tibetan Plateau (TP) are spatially heterogeneous lake-basin scale drivers remain unclear. In this study, we comprehensively estimated volume for 1132 larger than 1 km2 determined glacier contribution to lake change at basin-wide using satellite stereo multispectral images. Overall, mass stored in increased by 169.7 ± 15.1 Gt (3.9 0.4 yr?1) between 1976 2019, mainly Inner-TP (157.6 11.6 or 3.7 0.3 yr?1). A substantial increase occurred 1995 2019 (214.9 12.7 9.0 0.5 yr?1), following a period decrease (?45.2 8.2 ?2.4 prior 1995. slowdown rate 2010 2015 (23.1 6.5 4.6 1.3 followed again high value (65.7 6.7 16.4 1.7 The lake-water predominately glacier-fed (127.1 14.3 Gt) contrast non-glacier-fed (42.6 4.9 Gt), endorheic (161.9 14.0 against exorheic (7.8 5.8 over 1976–2019. Endorheic showed strongly contrasting patterns with remarkable storage northern TP slight southern TP. ratio excess meltwater runoff 2000 ~2019 was less 30% entire based several independent data sets. Among individual lake-basins, 14 0.3% 29.1%. other eight basins exhibited greater 116% 436%, which could be explained decreased net precipitation. basin reveal that enhanced precipitation predominantly drives but it is heterogeneous.