Lake Urmia, Lake Van & Lake Sevana (Source: NASA Visible Earth)

Hi,

I copied this from the cite NASA Visible Earth. You can see both Lake Van and Urmia by high resolution in it.

• Credit:  Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC

Turkey’s largest lake and Iran’s largest lake are both featured in this true-color image, acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite on September 9, 2003. The deep blue lake on the left is Turkey’ Lake Van. The lake is 120 kilometers long and 80 kilometers wide. It is fed by mountain streams, but has no outlet except evaporation. This has allowed salts and minerals to build in the lake to the point that only one species of fish can survive in its waters.

To the right of Lake Van is Iran’s Lake Urmia. Like Lake Van, Lake Urmia receives water from the surrounding mountains, but has no outlet. Lake Urmia is shallow, and sediment colors its waters turquoise compared to the deep black of Lake Van. North of both lakes is Armenia’s Lake Sevana.

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Annual precipitatition in Lake Urmia Basin

Hi

My last article has now accepted to be published at Theoretical and Applied Climatology. It is about structural characteristics of annual rainfall in Lake Urmia basin. I removed some stuff that I want to share it in here.

My study concludes that, North West and South West of the basin have the highest maximum rainfall amount, while the lowest amounts (i.e. Lowest amount related to max. observed annual rainfall) are related to the East coasts of the LU. To some extent it is confident to recognize that, maximum rainfall in the LUB is related to the altitudes and maximum annual rainfall decreases from West to East. Consequently the main input air fronts of basin are feeding form West and North. Figure 1 shows that the most amount of the vapor and moisture that coming from Turkey toward the LUB is descended inside the Turkish territory (Landsat 4, 5 and 8. USGS, 2015). Minimum amount of rainfall have same pattern while crossing West to East and North West of LUB has the highest min. annual rainfall while the least amounts belongs to Eastern side.

Fig.1. Landsat (4, 5 and 8) views of the West of the basin in the boarder of Turkey and Iran indicating the impact of border’s altitudes on the amount snow available on the land surface. (a) Landsat 4-5. Dec 9, 1987. (b) Landsat 4&5. Feb 4, 2000. (c) Landsat 4&5. May 14, 2007. (d) Landsat 8. Jan 12, 2015. (USGS, 2015)
P.S: please cite the weblog if you want to use this figure in another document

This is first evidence in its own category. Native people believe that Turkish side of the border got more precipitation and this Landsat pictures shows the evidence of such phenomena. Some of my friends believe that the tectonic movements which caused disastrous earthquake at Van (Turky)  in October 2011 is caused in the changes in the terrain which triggered the amount of water vapor crossing the border. 

As a proof they mention that, there were more snow or rain descend in the region but we got a little now a days. This satellite imagery obviously shows the effect of the border's mountains but those not necessarily support the idea of boycotting the air fronts from reaching the inner plains of the basin.

Please share your idea with me

Thankfully

Babak 

New Satellite Views of LU

The latest satellite view of Lake Urmia (Source: Campaign on Lake Urmia Rescue Telegram Channel).

Fig. 1. Nasa Aqua satellite view of Lake Urmia and remaining water in the North of the Lake (Dec 21, 2015)

Fig. 2. LandSat image about the project of linking Zarrine and Simine River in the South of lake as one of the main rescue projects (November 21, 2015)

NASA: Image of Change (Lake Urmia)

Hi
I want to share, NASA's image of the change with you. It shows the changes in amount of water in Lake Urmia from September 2000 to July 2014.

Resource link: http://climate.nasa.gov/state_of_flux#Lake-Urmia-Iran-2000-2014_930px.jpg

Precipitation on LUB

Hi guys.

After a long time. I decided to share some stuff with you. Actually I am working on paper about the precipitation of the Lake Urmia Basin (LUB). The early investigations on maximum, minimum etc. properties of the basin shows a strong non-homogeneity. Once comparing with previous literature, other research makers is underlining the strong variation in climate across the LUB. Relying on this studies my own investigations is in complete agreement with the previous researchs. I will share the results as soon as the main paper is published on the journal.

What is more, for people whom live in  Urmia it is  recognizable to see the reducing pattern of precipitation. what is more, for those who travel across the border of the Turkey and Iran specially in the winter and autumn it is surprising that mountains which are  on the border of two country does not share the same hillside conditions. While Turkey side is full of snow and overflowing rivers the hillside which is associated inside the Iranian border does not have any snow cover at all. Considering this I decided to take a look at satellite imagery picture. Here is the result of a  the investigation from LANDSAT 8 which was obtained from USGS earth explorer site (http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/).

These two images belongs to Feb 13. 2015 which indicates the role of  mountains on prevention of entrancement of  evaporation to the LUB. This subject is one of the pure subjects that is good for investigation but there is some limitations on investigations such phenomena (i.e. Political and International). What is more, in my new research I am studying the properties of rainfall in 53 meteorological stations which at least have 30 years of recorded data (There are stations with more than 40 year records) which the properties of them is exposed in Figure 1 bellow.

Figure 1. Box plot of the annual rainfall

I hope you enjoyed the new details which I shared with you after such a  long time. But I will try to write more posts.

Thankfully yours 

Babak Vaheddoost