HR: 12:05h
AN: H21G-08    [PDF]
TI: Space Altimetry Method for Monitoring Lake Level Changes
AU: * Cretaux, J
EM: Jean-Francois.Cretaux@cnes.fr
AF: CNES/LEGOS, 18 Av Edouard Belin, Toulouse, 31400 France
AU: Cazenave, A
EM: Anny.Cazenave@cnes.fr
AF: CNES/LEGOS, 18 Av Edouard Belin, Toulouse, 31400 France
AU: Kouraev, A
EM: alexei.kouraev@cesbio.cnes.fr
AF: CNES/LEGOS, 18 Av Edouard Belin, Toulouse, 31400 France
AB: Accurate and continuous monitoring of lakes and inlands seas are available since 1991 thanks to the recent missions of satellite altimetry (Topex-Poseidon, ERS-1, ERS-2, Jason-1 and Envisat). Global processing of the data of these satellites could provide temporal and spatial times series of lakes surface height from 1991 to 2003 on the whole Earth with a decimeter precision. The response of water level to regional hydrology is particularly marked for lakes and inland seas of semi-arid regions. Altimetry data can provide invaluable source of information in hydrology sciences, but in-situ data (rivers runoff, temperature, or precipitation) are still strongly needed to study the evolution of water mass balance of each lakes. Lake level variations can however be used as interesting constrained parameter in ungauging lake basin for water mass balance budget. Recent studies based on Topex-Pose‹don data have shown evidence of significant inter-annual variations of the Caspian or the Aral sea levels. Analysis of Baikal, Issykkul, Balkhash and Hovsgol lakes level from 1993 to 2003 is also presented.
DE: 1803 Anthropogenic effects
DE: 1836 Hydrologic budget (1655)
DE: 1845 Limnology
DE: 1860 Runoff and streamflow
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting