The world’s largest High Arctic lake responds rapidly to climate warming

Igor Lehnherr (), Vincent L. St. Louis, Martin Sharp, Alex S. Gardner, John P. Smol, Sherry L. Schiff, Derek C. G. Muir, Colleen A. Mortimer, Neil Michelutti, Charles Tarnocai, Kyra A. St. Pierre, Craig A. Emmerton, Johan A. Wiklund, Günter Köck, Scott F. Lamoureux and Charles H. Talbot
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Igor Lehnherr: University of Toronto-Mississauga
Vincent L. St. Louis: University of Alberta
Martin Sharp: University of Alberta
Alex S. Gardner: California Institute of Technology
John P. Smol: Queen’s University
Sherry L. Schiff: University of Waterloo
Derek C. G. Muir: Canada Centre for Inland Waters
Colleen A. Mortimer: University of Alberta
Neil Michelutti: Queen’s University
Charles Tarnocai: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
Kyra A. St. Pierre: University of Alberta
Craig A. Emmerton: University of Alberta
Johan A. Wiklund: Canada Centre for Inland Waters
Günter Köck: Institute for Interdisciplinary Mountain Studies (ÖAW-IGF)
Scott F. Lamoureux: Queen’s University
Charles H. Talbot: Canada Centre for Inland Waters

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Using a whole-watershed approach and a combination of historical, contemporary, modeled and paleolimnological datasets, we show that the High Arctic’s largest lake by volume (Lake Hazen) has succumbed to climate warming with only a ~1 °C relative increase in summer air temperatures. This warming deepened the soil active layer and triggered large mass losses from the watershed’s glaciers, resulting in a ~10 times increase in delivery of glacial meltwaters, sediment, organic carbon and legacy contaminants to Lake Hazen, a >70% decrease in lake water residence time, and near certainty of summer ice-free conditions. Concomitantly, the community assemblage of diatom primary producers in the lake shifted dramatically with declining ice cover, from shoreline benthic to open-water planktonic species, and the physiological condition of the only fish species in the lake, Arctic Char, declined significantly. Collectively, these changes place Lake Hazen in a biogeochemical, limnological and ecological regime unprecedented within the past ~300 years.

Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-03685-z

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