Physical and chemical impacts of a major storm on a temperate lake: a taste of things to come?

• Published in: Climatic change Vol. 151; no. 2; pp. 333 - 347
• Main Authors: Woolway, R. Iestyn, Simpson, John H., Spiby, David, Feuchtmayr, Heidrun, Powell, Ben, Maberly, Stephen C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.11.2018; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Aquatic ecosystems; Atmospheric Sciences; Climate change; Climate change influences; Climate Change/Climate Change Impacts; Density stratification; Dissolved oxygen; Downstream; Downstream effects; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Energy flux; Energy transfer; Extreme weather; Lakes; Meteorological conditions; Ocean circulation; Organic chemistry; Outflow; Oxygen; Resistance thermometers; River ecology; Rivers; Stability; Storms; Stratification; Thermocline; Upwelling; Water outflow; Weather; Weather effects; Wind; Wind power; Wind speed; United Kingdom > UK; England
• ISSN: 0165-0009; 1573-1480
• DOI: 10.1007/s10584-018-2302-3

Extreme weather can have a substantial influence on lakes and is expected to become more frequent with climate change. We explored the influence of one particular extreme event, Storm Ophelia, on the physical and chemical environment of England’s largest lake, Windermere. We found that the substantial influence of Ophelia on meteorological conditions at Windermere, in particular wind speed, resulted in a 25-fold increase (relative to the study-period average) in the wind energy flux at the lake-air interface. Following Ophelia, there was a short-lived mixing event in which the Schmidt stability decreased by over 100 Jm −2 and the thermocline deepened by over 10 m during a 12-h period. As a result of changes to the strength of stratification, Ophelia also changed the internal seiche regime of Windermere with the dominant seiche period increasing from ~ 17 h pre-storm to ~ 21 h post-storm. Following Ophelia, there was an upwelling of cold and low-oxygenated waters at the southern-end of the lake. This had a substantial influence on the main outflow of Windermere, the River Leven, where dissolved oxygen concentrations decreased by ~ 48%, from 9.3 to 4.8 mg L −1 , while at the mid-lake monitoring station in Windermere, it decreased by only ~ 3%. This study illustrates that the response of a lake to extreme weather can cause important effects downstream, the influence of which may not be evident at the lake surface. To understand the impact of future extreme events fully, the whole lake and downstream-river system need to be studied together.