Area Change of Snow and Ice in the Babao River Basin, Tibetan Plateau

Snow and ice in the Tibetan Plateau are important water source of Asia, as many famous rivers originate from this plateau. To ascertain the change of snow and ice under the global warming background, we used thirty years Landsat images and observation data to analyze this change. Utilizing the classic Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI) algorithm to extract the area of snow and ice in the Babao River basin. The results indicated that the annual river discharge, average precipitation and temperature were all increased in the Babao River basin. However, the annual average snow and ice area obviously decreased with fluctuations from 1986 to 2017, which was correlated with the temperature rise. The river discharge increase was benefit from the precipitation increases and snow and ice melt. This study provides a reference for the research about snow and ice change in the Tibetan Plateau or other regions.