Warming Climate-Induced Changes in Lithuanian River Ice Phenology

Diana Šarauskienė, Darius Jakimavičius, Aldona Jurgelėnaitė and Jūratė Kriaučiūnienė ()
Additional contact information
Diana Šarauskienė: Laboratory of Hydrology, Lithuanian Energy Institute, Breslaujos St. 3, LT-44403 Kaunas, Lithuania
Darius Jakimavičius: Laboratory of Hydrology, Lithuanian Energy Institute, Breslaujos St. 3, LT-44403 Kaunas, Lithuania
Aldona Jurgelėnaitė: Laboratory of Hydrology, Lithuanian Energy Institute, Breslaujos St. 3, LT-44403 Kaunas, Lithuania
Jūratė Kriaučiūnienė: Laboratory of Hydrology, Lithuanian Energy Institute, Breslaujos St. 3, LT-44403 Kaunas, Lithuania

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 2, 1-18

Abstract: Due to rising surface air temperatures, river ice is shrinking dramatically in the Northern Hemisphere. Ice cover during the cold season causes fundamental changes in river ecosystems and has important implications for nearby communities and industries. Changes caused by climate warming, therefore, affect the sustainability of key resources, livelihoods, and traditional practices. Thus far, too little attention has been paid to research into the phenomenon of river ice in the Baltic States. Since the observational data of the last sixty years are currently available, we took advantage of the unique opportunity to assess ice regime changes in the gauged rivers by comparing two climatological standard normals. By applying statistical methods (Mann–Kendall, Pettitt, SNHT, Buishand, von Neumann, and Wilcoxon rank sum tests), this study determined drastic changes in ice phenology parameters (freeze-up date, ice break-up date, and ice cover duration) of Lithuanian rivers in the last thirty-year period. The dependence of the selected parameters on local climatic factors and large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns was identified. It was established that the sum of negative air temperatures, as well as the North Atlantic Oscillation, East Atlantic, and Arctic Oscillation indices, have the greatest influence on the ice regime of Lithuanian rivers.

Keywords: river ice phenology; climate change; teleconnection patterns (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/2/725/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/2/725/ (text/html)

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:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:2:p:725-:d:1319026

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().