Abstract
Indian summer monsoon (ISM) has profound impact on water resources over
the Asian Water Towers (AWTs) and surroundings. Stable isotopes in
precipitation (δ18O and δD) are crucial tracers of ISM
moisture transport processes. Here we presented spatiotemporal
variations of stable isotopes in precipitation at three stations over
Bangladesh in 2017-2018 to evaluate the influence of moisture sources
and transport on intra-seasonal variations of stable isotopes in
precipitation, combined with local meteorological data, ERA5 reanalysis
data and HYSPLIT model. We found
Bay of Bengal (BoB), tropical Indian Ocean (TIO) and Arabian Sea (AS)
were the primary moisture suppliers throughout the year and moisture
uptake process primarily occurred over BoB. The most enriched
δ18O and δD values exist in the pre-monsoon season,
associated with >50% contributions from BoB, and gradually
decline throughout the monsoon and post-monsoon seasons due to increased
contribution of moisture from AS (~30%) and IO
(~40%), and reach to their lowest values by the end of
the post-monsoon season when >25% contributed from BoB and
~20% from TIO. The strongly positive
δ18O-OLR and negative δ18O-humidity
relationships were found at all three stations showing a decreasing
pattern from south to north.δ18O-temperature
(δ18O-precipitation) relationship was only found at
southern stations at local scale. Convective activities over the AS, BoB
and northern IO primarily regulate the
δ18O depletion,
and a weak (strong) flux-δ18O relationship for
northward (eastward) transport was found. This study could improve
understanding of moisture transport by the ISM for our societies to
promote the water resource management over AWTs.