The extent and variability of storm-induced temperatura changes in lakes measured with long-term and high-frequency data

DOUBEK, JONATHAN P.; ANNEVILLE, ORLANE; DUR, GAËL; LEWANDOWSKA, ALEKSANDRA M.; PATIL, VIJAY P.; RUSAK, JAMES A.; SALMASO, NICO; SELTMANN, CHRISTIAN T.; STRAILE, DIETMAR; URRUTIA-CORDERO, PABLO; VENAIL, PATRICK; ADRIAN, R.; ALFONSO, MARIA; DEGASPERI, C.; DE EYTO, E.; FEUCHTMAYR, H.; GAISER, E.; GIRDNER, S.; GRAHAM, J.; GROSSART, HANS-PETER; HEJZLAR, JOSEF; JACQUET, S.; KIRILLIN, G.; LLAMES, M.E.; MATSUZAKI, SHIN-ICHIRO S.; NODINE, EMILY R.; PICCOLO; MARIA; PIERSON; DON; RIMMER; A.; RUDSTAM, LARS G.; SADRO; S.; SWAIN; H.; THACKERAY, STEPHEN J.; THIERY, WIM; VERBURG, PIET; ZOHARY, TAMAR; STOCKWELL, JASON D.

LIMNOLOGY AND OCEANOGRAPHY

AMER SOC LIMNOLOGY OCEANOGRAPHY

Lugar: New ; Año: 2021

0024-3590

The intensity and frequency of storms are projected to increase in manyregions of the world because of climate change. Storms can alterenvironmental conditions and biological communities in manyecosystems. In lakes and reservoirs, storms can reduce epilimnetictemperatures from wind-induced mixing with colder hypolimnetic waters,direct precipitation to the lake?s surface, and watershed runoff. Weanalyzed 17 long-term and high-frequency datasets from 10 countries toassess the magnitude of storm-induced changes in epilimnetictemperature. Overall, we found small day-to-day temperature decreasesin response to strong wind and rainfall during stratified conditions. Dayto-day epilimnetic temperature decreased, on average, by 0.2 ºC duringthe strongest wind and by 0.1 ºC during the strongest rain storms. Thelargest decreases in epilimnetic temperature generally were observedseveral days (i.e., ≥ 2 days) after sustained strong wind or rain(standardized as top 5th percentile of wind and rain events in each lake),and generally occurred in shallow lakes. The smallest decreases occurredin deep lakes. Epilimnetic temperature change from wind, but not rainstorms, was negatively correlated with maximum depth. However, eventhe largest storm-induced mean epilimnetic temperature decreases weretypically less than 2 ºC, with only two lakes exhibiting a decrease of > 2ºC. Day-to-day temperature change, in the absence of storms, oftenexceeded storm-induced temperature changes. Therefore, storm-inducedchanges in other environmental variables such as nutrient concentrationsor light availability likely impact lake biological communities (i.e.,phytoplankton) more than temperature changes.