Lake outburst accelerated permafrost degradation on Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Lakes and permafrost on Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) are both important indicators of climate change. Previous literatures have shown the usefulness of optical remote sensing in lake expansion monitoring and the effectiveness of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry (InSAR) in retrieving permafrost deformation on QTP. However, none of them incorporated both optical remote sensing and InSAR to investigate an event that may exhibit causal links between lake outburst and permafrost degradation. This study integrated both the Google Earth Engine (GEE) analysis on optical images and the small baseline subset (SBAS) processing on SAR datasets to evaluate the potential impact of a lake outburst event on permafrost degradation. The outburst of Zonag Lake (headwater lake) that occurred on 14 September 2011 was focused, and its consequential influence on the permafrost degradation surrounding Salt Lake (tailwater lake) was investigated. The GEE processing on Landsat and HJ-1 imageries allowed an efficient monitoring of the Salt Lake expansion over past 20 years. In addition, the SBAS-InSAR analysis on temporal Envisat and Sentinel-1 datasets further discovered the accelerated permafrost degradation surrounding Salt Lake after 2014. The results provide an evidence that on QTP the outburst of a headwater lake may significantly accelerate the permafrost degradation surrounding the tailwater lake. Such degradation may be attributed to the thermal alteration of the permafrost thawing-freezing cycle and the melting ground ice, along with the subsequent changes on hydrological connectivity and soil permeability. With the continuous trend of the permafrost degradation surrounding Salt Lake, potential risks may be further exposed to the regional environment and infrastructures such as the Qinghai-Tibet railway and highway, thus deserving a particular attention in the near future. The novelties of this study are: 1) technically, the preliminary attempt to integrate the GEE and InSAR techniques for a joint analysis of lake expansion and permafrost degradation, and 2) scientifically, the finding that lake outburst may accelerate permafrost degradation on QTP. •Joint analysis of GEE and SBAS for lake and permafrost study over past 20 years•Salt Lake expanded with increased deformation after Zonag Lake outburst.•Lake outburst may accelerate permafrost degradation on QTP.