Through the Intense Heatwaves Around the World, Lakes Are Also Feeling the Heat From Climate Change

As strenuous heatwaves engulf the United Kingdom, Spain, France, and Portugal, with temperatures reaching 40 degrees Celsius at times, as well as parts of North America and Asia, lakes all around the globe are feeling the pressure from climate change, which is causing a domino effect of ecological and environmental problems.

Northern-most lakes are thought to be environmental change forerunners, however, research demonstrates that the effects of climate change may influence any of the world's more than 100 million lakes.

Lakes are getting warmer

(Photo : Ricardo Frantz/Unsplash)

Reader R. Iestyn Woolway of Bangor University in Wales, Associate Professor Sapna Sharma of York University, and Distinguished University Professor John Smol of Queen's University reviewed and synthesized available studies on freshwater lakes from around the world to create a cohesive picture of how climate change is threatening lakes.

The researchers discovered that the consequences of climate change on lakes are frequently cumulative, as per ScienceDaily.

Warmer water temperatures cause changes in stratification regimes, drops in dissolved oxygen, an increased danger of cyanobacterial algal blooms, and habitat loss for native cold-water fish.

It has the potential to impact not just water quality and quantity, but also cultural and recreational activities, as well as local economics.

Warmer air temperatures can have an influence on winter ice cover on northern lakes.

Ice loss is one of the most visible effects of climate change on lakes, since it may raise winter evaporation rates and water temperatures, resulting in a variety of physical and chemical effects, including increased salinity.

The worldwide mean annual evaporation of lakes is anticipated to increase by 16% by the end of the century. Furthermore, decreasing precipitation amounts might have a substantial impact on lake levels.

Events such as an early summer season can also generate mismatches in fish spawning and foraging, which can have far-reaching consequences across the food chain.

Algonquin Park banned overnight camping on isolated and nutrient-poor Dickson Lake seven years ago due to health concerns created by cyanobacterial blooms.

According to sediment-based research, these blooms are novel to the lake, and no analogous occurrences have happened in the previous century, but that is changing.

Warmer water temperatures, algal blooms, earlier and longer periods of thermal stratification, and lower dissolved oxygen concentrations can all have significant cumulative and possibly detrimental consequences on aquatic animals like fish.

According to Smol, the consequences of climate change combine synergistically with a variety of environmental stresses, aggravating problems with water quantity and quality such as salinization, pollution, and the spread of exotic species.

Lakes and climate change

According to a recent NASA and National Science Foundation-funded assessment of more than half of the world's fresh water supply, climate change is quickly warming lakes throughout the world, jeopardizing freshwater supplies and ecosystems.

Using more than 25 years of satellite temperature data and ground measurements from 235 lakes across six continents, the largest research of its type discovered lakes are warming by 0.61 degrees Fahrenheit (0.34 degrees Celsius) every decade.

According to experts, this is faster than either the ocean or the atmosphere, and it can have far-reaching consequences.

Algal blooms, which may strip water of oxygen, are expected to grow by 20% in lakes as warming rates rise over the next century.

Toxic algal blooms that harm fish and animals are projected to grow by 5%.

If current rates continue, methane emissions, a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide on 100-year time periods, would rise by 4% over the next decade.

The great majority of human uses rely on surface water, according to co-author Stephanie Hampton, director of Washington State University's Center for Environmental Research, Education, and Outreach in Pullman.

Not only for drinking water, but also for manufacturing, energy generation, and crop irrigation. Freshwater fish protein is especially significant in underdeveloped countries.

Water temperature affects a variety of other qualities that are crucial to the health and survival of ecosystems.

When temperatures vary rapidly and substantially from the usual, living forms in a lake can alter dramatically, if not vanish.