Increasing maximum lake surface temperature under climate change

Martin T. Dokulil (), Elvira Eyto, Stephen C. Maberly, Linda May, Gesa A. Weyhenmeyer and R. Iestyn Woolway
Additional contact information
Martin T. Dokulil: University of Innsbruck
Elvira Eyto: Marine Institute
Stephen C. Maberly: UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
Linda May: UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
Gesa A. Weyhenmeyer: Uppsala University
R. Iestyn Woolway: European Space Agency Climate Office, ECSAT, Harwell Campus

Climatic Change, 2021, vol. 165, issue 3, No 15, 17 pages

Abstract: Abstract 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.

Keywords: Warming; Critical temperatures; Extremes; Trends; Europe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10584-021-03085-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:climat:v:165:y:2021:i:3:d:10.1007_s10584-021-03085-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10584

DOI: 10.1007/s10584-021-03085-1

Access Statistics for this article

Climatic Change is currently edited by M. Oppenheimer and G. Yohe

More articles in Climatic Change from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().