Quantifying the warming-induced impact of glacier storage change on runoff using Budyko framework: A case study in the Tarim River basin

Abstract

Study region: The Tarim River Basin Study focus: Under the warming climate, understanding the impact of glacier storage changes on runoff is essential for maintaining ecosystems and freshwater supplies to lowland areas in cold regions. However, the lack of glacier data significantly hampers long-term analysis of this impact. To address this issue, we proposed a practical method within the Budyko framework to quantify the warming-induced changes in glacier storage. Based on this framework, we further developed a transparent elasticity approach to quantify how runoff responds to the glacier changes, with observations from 17 glacier-covered catchments in the Tarim River Basin, China. New hydrological insights for the region: Our results show that a 1℃ temperature rise in this region would lead to a 5–29 % increase in runoff attributable to warming-induced glacier storage change. On average, the glacier storage change contributes to approximately 25 % of runoff increases during 1960–2019. However, this positive trend may not be consistently sustained due to the non-linear and accelerated glacier loss in response to warming. The approach we present here provides efficient estimates for glacier-related hydrological changes in the Tarim River Basin and is transferable to other glacier-impacted regions due to its transparent methodology and low input requirements.

Keywords

• Runoff
• Budyko Framework
• Glacier
• Attribution analysis
• Climate Change
• The Tarim River Basin