Characteristics of Stable Isotopes in Precipitation and Their Moisture Sources in the Guanling Region, Guizhou Province

Abstract

Environmental prediction is one of the crucial means for social sustainable development. Based on the continuous sampling of atmospheric precipitation in Guanling County, Guizhou Province, China, from March 2016 to February 2017, and combining the reanalyzed data of the National Centre for Environmental Prediction/National Centre for Atmospheric Research with the Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory model, this paper analyzed the variations of δ2H and δ18O in precipitation at the synoptic scale in the Guanling region. The results showed that the variations of δ2H, δ18O, and d-excess values in precipitation exhibited remarkable seasonal variability. The stable isotopic values in precipitation in the winter half-year were higher than those in the summer half-year. The meteoric water line of the winter half-year was close to the annual meteoric water line. The results showed that there was more than one fundamental source of moisture. It was affected by the winter monsoon period, which is longer than the summer monsoon period, so the local evaporation of water vapor participating in the water circulation had a greater impact. With the increase of precipitation, the intercept and slope of the meteoric water line gradually decreased, which indicated that the secondary evaporation was weak under the effect of stable isotope subcloud cluster. The correlations of precipitation δ18O with temperature T and precipitation P vary with time scales. As the time scale decreased, the correlation between δ18O and the temperature and precipitation improved. When P ≤ 5 mm and 10°C < T ≤ 30°C, the most sensitive changes in stable isotopes were observed. In the study area, the backward trajectory model showed that the moisture in the winter half of the year was mainly from the transportation of the westerlies wind, replenishment, and local reevaporation of near-source ocean water, while the water in the summer half of the year mainly came from the transportation of water from the ocean at low latitudes.