Analyses Of Modern Snowline And Its Influential Factors In The Tibet

Glacier is a kind of important nature resource. Snowline is an important indicator to measure the glacier's development. It is the product of climate, which controls the advance and retreat of glaciers, so as to control the size of glaciers. There are a lot of glaciers in the Tibetan Plateau; we can study the altitude of snowline to reflect the development and distribution of the glacier. So the research of the snowline and its height is very important.The research on snowline includes two respects. On the one hand, by using the Kriging, we create the snowline field of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau with the snowline data of glacier inventory, then we can get the regularities of distribution of the snowline. The altitude of the snowline in the west is higher than the east and it becomes higher and higher from east to west; the distribution of the snowline in the south is complicated; snowline in the north is sparse while the line in the south is dense.And then, by the application of 74 climate stations in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau by Spline; we can obtain the interpolation map. Tracking the snowline and using the slope information which comes from the DEM data, we can attain the value of temperature, precipitation, slope and snowline. Furthermore, we analyze these values through partial correlation which can eliminate the interaction between different values. By this process, we get the factors which control the distribution of the snowline. Taking these analyses into account, we can attain a few conclusions. Precipitation is the most important factor among the climate elements which impact the snowline. It is in contrast to the altitude of the snowline. The factors of climate and terrain can reflect the distribution of the snowline in detail; in the north-east flat area, slope has a little influence. Temperature is the main factor. In the south, temperature has a little effect on the snowline which is mainly influenced by the slope and precipitation. Precipitation is the most important factors. In the north-west and the south interiors, slope and temperature have a little infection, precipitation is the main factor.