Why are glacial lakes in the eastern Tianshan Mountains expanding at an accelerated rate?

Monitoring alpine lakes is important for understanding the regional environmental changes caused by global warming. In this study, we provided a detailed analysis of alpine lake changes in the Tianshan Mountains (TS) and discussed their driving forces based on Landsat TM/ETM+/OLI, WorldView-2, Bing, Google Earth, and ASTER imagery, along with climatic data from 1990 to 2015. The results showed that during the study period, the total number and area of alpine lakes in the eastern TS exhibited an increasing trend, by 64.06% and 47.92%, respectively. Furthermore, the continuous expansion of glacial lakes contributed 95.12% and 94.17% to the total increase in the number and area, respectively, of alpine lakes. Non-glacial lakes exhibited only intermittent expansion. Since the 1990s, the new glacial lakes in the eastern TS have been mainly proglacial and extraglacial lakes. Over the past 25 years, eastern TS has experienced a temperature increase rate of 0.47 & DEG;C/10a, which is higher than that in other TS regions. The rapidly warming climate and glacier recession are the primary causes of the accelerated expansion of glacial lakes in the eastern TS.

Automated summary

Monitoring alpine lakes in the Tianshan Mountains is crucial for understanding the impact of global warming. This study analyzed the changes in alpine lakes and found that glacial lakes expansion is the main driving force, influenced by climate change and glacier recession.