Earlier ice melt increases hypolimnetic oxygen despite regional warming in small Arctic lakes

Although trends toward earlier ice‐out have been documented globally, the links between ice‐out timing and lake thermal and biogeochemical structure vary spatially. In high‐latitude lakes where ice‐out occurs close to peak intensity of solar radiation, these links remain unclear. Using a long‐term d...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inLimnology and oceanography letters Vol. 9; no. 3; pp. 258 - 267
Main Authors Hazuková, Václava, Burpee, Benjamin T., Northington, Robert M., Anderson, N. John, Saros, Jasmine E.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Hoboken, USA John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.06.2024
Wiley
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Summary:Although trends toward earlier ice‐out have been documented globally, the links between ice‐out timing and lake thermal and biogeochemical structure vary spatially. In high‐latitude lakes where ice‐out occurs close to peak intensity of solar radiation, these links remain unclear. Using a long‐term dataset from 13 lakes in West Greenland, we investigated how changing ice‐out and weather conditions affect lake thermal structure and oxygen concentrations. In early ice‐out years, lakes reach higher temperatures across the water column and have deeper epilimnia. Summer hypolimnia are the warmest (~ 11°C) in years when cooler air temperatures follow early ice‐out, allowing full lake turnover. Due to the higher potential for substantive spring mixing in early ice‐out years, a warmer hypolimnion is associated with higher dissolved oxygen concentrations. By affecting variability in spring mixing, the consequences of shifts in ice phenology for lakes at high latitudes differ from expectations based on temperate regions.
Bibliography:Data and code are available at
Author Contribution Statement
Data Availability Statement
https://arcticdata.io/catalog/view/doi:10.18739/A21834419
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VH and JES conceptualized the study and developed the research question. VH led statistical analysis and visualization. JES, RMN, BTB, and NJA designed the field survey, and all authors conducted the field survey. VH led writing of the manuscript and all authors contributed with significant edits.
ISSN:2378-2242
2378-2242
DOI:10.1002/lol2.10386