World’s lakes are warming faster than the ocean, study reports
A recent large-scale study shows that the world's lakes are warming at a faster rate than both the atmosphere and the ocean.
Earth’s lakes are warming faster than both the atmosphere and the ocean, according to a recent report published in Geophysical Research Letters.
This study was funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation. In it, dozens of researchers from around the world studied 235 lakes spanning six continents. That accounts for more than half of the world’s freshwater supply.
Using 25 years worth of satellite and ground temperature data, the scientists concluded that the Earth’s lakes are warming an average of 0.61 degrees Fahrenheit each decade, The Christian Science Monitor reports. While that may not seem like a lot, it is the highest rate of warming out of any part of the environment, including the atmosphere and the ocean.
“We found that lakes are warming at an average of 0.34 degrees Celsius each decade all around the world, threatening freshwater supplies and ecosystems,” said Sapna Sharma, a biologist at York University, in a statement. “This can have profound effects on drinking water and the habitat of fish and other animals.”
According to the data, hotter lakes will cause algae blooms to increase by 20 percent over the next century. Toxic algae blooms will rise by 5 percent. Such blooms are problematic because they take oxygen away from the water, which threatens both animals and plants. Furthermore, the current warming trends will also increase methane–a greenhouse gas more powerful than carbon dioxide–emissions from lakes by 4 percent.
In addition to their environmental role, lakes serve an important societal need as well. Not only do they act as a source of drinking water, but they also are used for manufacturing, energy production, and irrigation. However, while important, it may be very hard to combat the lake warming trend.
That is because a lot of the causes behind the phenomenon have no overarching geographic trend. That is to say, lakes are experiencing comparable warming no matter what part of the world they are in. Lakes in warmer climates because less cloud cover is exposing them to the sun’s rays, while lakes in colder climates are warming faster because ice loss is occurring earlier in the year. While some lakes actually cooled in the study, this was largely an anomaly caused by shade from trees or nearby glaciers.
The overall suggest that changes to the lakes are not just unavoidable, they are already happening. As a result, they act as an indicator of larger changes in the environment. That makes them a great tool for studying local climate change.
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