Effects of Climate Change on Lakes

Abstract

The effect of ongoing climate change on lakes and reservoirs is one of the most serious issues facing human society. The projected changes in regional water balance will alter the capacity of lakes to provide ecosystem goods and services, such as inland fisheries and adequate supplies of safe drinking water. The ongoing warming trend will affect the physical, chemical, and biological properties of lake ecosystems, with implications for water quality (e.g., through the likely increased abundance of noxious cyanobacteria) and for wildlife habitats (e.g., through changes in littoral wetlands, stratification regimes, and primary production). At the most fundamental cellular and physiological level, changes in water temperature will affect the metabolic rates of aquatic organisms, and for some species there may be shifts beyond their critical threshold for survival. On the other hand, warmer temperatures will allow some newly invading species to survive and complete their life cycles, although this may come at the expense of any original species that are driven to extinction through predation or competition. At the broader ecosystem level, climate change will have pervasive effects on the physical structure and connectivity of lake ecosystems, their food webs and biodiversity, their biogeochemical characteristics, and their overall metabolic properties, including greenhouse gas production.