On the use of averaged indicators to assess lakes’ thermal response to changes in climatic conditions

Toffolon, Marco; Piccolroaz, Sebastiano; Calamita, Elisa

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ab763e

Cited by 32 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…The present analysis focused on annually-averaged temperatures, offering a change of paradigm compared to the recent tendency towards focusing on long-term changes in summer LSWT (Schneider and Hook 2010;O'Reilly et al 2015;Sharma et al 2015). Although summer-averaged LSWT have undoubtedly been pivotal in our understanding and for evaluating the direction of warming globally, they cannot be assumed as representative of the overall thermal response of lakes, due to the existence of substantial seasonal variations in LSWT warming rates (Winslow et al 2017b;Woolway et al 2017a;Toffolon et al, 2020) primarily modulated by stratification dynamics (Piccolroaz et al 2015;Zhong et al 2016). Specifically, lakes thermal reactivity to changes in air temperature is much higher in summer due to strong thermal stratification, thus lower thermal inertia (Piccolroaz et al 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global reconstruction of twentieth century lake surface water temperature reveals different warming trends depending on the climatic zone

2020

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Lake surface water temperatures (LSWTs) are sensitive to climate change, but previous studies have typically focused on temperatures from only the last few decades. Thus, while there is good appreciation of LSWT warming in recent decades, our understanding of longerterm temperature change is comparatively limited. In this study, we use a mechanistically based open-source model (air2water), driven by air temperature from a state-of-the-art global atmospheric reanalysis (ERA-20C) and calibrated with satellite-derived LSWT observations (ARC-Lake v3), to investigate the long-term change in LSWT worldwide. The predictive ability of the model is tested across 606 lakes, with ninety-one percent of the lakes showing a daily Root Mean Square Error smaller than 1.5 °C. Model performance was better at midlatitudes and decreased toward the equator. The results illustrated highly variable mean annual LSWT trends during the 20 th century and across climatic regions. Substantial warming is evident after ~1980 and the most responsive lakes to climate change are located in the temperate regions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global reconstruction of twentieth century lake surface water temperature reveals different warming trends depending on the climatic zone

2020

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“…Warming alterations of such lakes in time and space have been characterized by Toffolon et al (2020) using the difference of maximum LSWT between the five warmest and coldest years as a proxy. Critical water temperatures over extended periods will influence almost all aspects of aquatic ecosystems, particularly the metabolism of the organisms at all levels of the food web (Winder and Schindler 2004b;Kraemer et al 2017).…”

Section: Potential Biological Impactsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increasing maximum lake surface temperature under climate change

et al. 2021

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Annual maximum lake surface temperature influences ecosystem structure and function and, in particular, the rates of metabolic activities, species survival and biogeography. Here, we evaluated 50 years of observational data, from 1966 to 2015, for ten European lakes to quantify changes in the annual maximum surface temperature and the duration above a potentially critical temperature of 20 °C. Our results show that annual maximum lake surface temperature has increased at an average rate of +0.58 °C decade−1 (95% confidence interval 0.18), which is similar to the observed increase in annual maximum air temperature of +0.42 °C decade−1 (95% confidence interval 0.28) over the same period. Increments in lake maximum temperature among the ten lakes range from +0.1 in the west to +1.9 °C decade−1 in the east. Absolute maximum lake surface water temperatures were reached in Wörthersee, 27.5 °C, and Neusiedler See, 31.7 °C. Periods exceeding a critical temperature of 20 °C each year became two to six times longer than the respective average (6 to 93). The depth at which water temperature exceeded 20 °C increased from less than 1 to more than 6 m in Mondsee, Austria, over the 50 years studied. As a consequence, the habitable environment became increasingly restricted for many organisms that are adapted to historic conditions.

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“…Moreover, warming efficiency is prominent in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. This suggests that besides the warming effect caused by concurrent higher air and land surface temperatures through conduction [51], previous meteorological conditions [44], the long ice-cover season lasting until April-May [52], and other physical processes such as albedo changes associated with snow/ice melting [53] or strong radiative warming penetrating the transparent ice cover [54] may contribute to higher warming efficiency, which deserves further investigation. Overall, the difference in the LSWT warming trend is combinedly caused by higher air temperature trends and warming efficiency in dryland lakes compared to lakes located in humid regions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Warming efficiency η is a simple lake-averaged indicator introduced by Toffolon et al (2020) [44], which quantifies to what extent LSWT changes relative to a change in air temperature. In order to compute this indicator, first, the five coldest and five warmest years in the period 1995-2016 were identified (in terms of mean summer LSWT) for each lake.…”

Section: Warming Efficiencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhanced Warming in Global Dryland Lakes and Its Drivers

Wang

et al. 2021

Remote Sensing

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Lake surface water temperature (LSWT) is sensitive to climate change. Previous studies have found that LSWT warming is occurring on a global scale and is expected to continue in the future. Recently, new global LSWT data products have been generated using satellite remote sensing, which provides an inimitable opportunity to study the LSWT response to global warming. Based on the satellite observations, we found that the warming rate of global lakes is uneven, with apparent regional differences. Indeed, comparing the LSWT warming in different climate zones (from arid to humid), the lakes in drylands experienced more significant warming (0.28 °C decade−1) than those in semi-humid and humid regions (0.19 °C decade−1) during previous decades (1995–2016). By further quantifying the impact factors, it showed that the LSWT warming is attributed to air temperature (74.4%), evaporation (4.1%), wind (9.9%), cloudiness (4.3%), net shortwave (3.1%), and net longwave (4.0%) over the lake surface. Air temperature is the main driving force for the warming of most global lakes, so the first estimate quantification of future LSWT trends can be determined from air temperature projections. By the end of the 21st century, the summer air temperature would warm up to 1.0 °C (SSP1-2.6) and 6.3 °C (SSP5-8.5) over lakes, with a more significant warming trend over the dryland lakes. Combined with their higher warming sensitivity, the excess summer LSWT warming in drylands is expected to continue, which is of great significance because of their high relevance in these water-limited regions.

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On the use of averaged indicators to assess lakes’ thermal response to changes in climatic conditions

Cited by 32 publications

References 60 publications

Global reconstruction of twentieth century lake surface water temperature reveals different warming trends depending on the climatic zone

Global reconstruction of twentieth century lake surface water temperature reveals different warming trends depending on the climatic zone

Increasing maximum lake surface temperature under climate change

Enhanced Warming in Global Dryland Lakes and Its Drivers

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