Fig. 4: Regional integrated analysis of paleoecological records and remote sensing data across the Tibetan Plateau lakes.
From: Rapid ecological change outpaces climate warming in Tibetan glacier lakes
a, c show sedimentary proxies aggregated from approximately 10 glacier-fed lakes on the Tibetan Plateau (TP), illustrating the rate of change (RoC) derived from curves fitted with hierarchical generalized additive models (HGAM). For detailed data, refer to Supplementary Table 5. This panel visualizes the synthesized RoC across selected lakes, underlining the widespread ecological shifts within the region. b, d show analysis of the Forel-Ule Index (FUI), a holistic indicator of lake water quality, across 111 large lakes (lake area > 25 km²) on the TP, modeled using HGAM to determine its RoC. Similarly, temporal RoC in regional lake paleoecological records and FUI time series was estimated from the posterior simulations of the fitted HGAMs using the first derivative of a spline, with red lines marking significant acceleration (the 95% CI do not encompass zero). The adjacent box plot emphasizes the variations in RoC during distinct historical periods, showcasing the temporal shifts in lake water quality and environmental conditions across the Tibetan Plateau. Parentheses with significance markers indicate differences between any two groups, based on ANOVA analysis. The significance levels are *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.
