Interannual variability of circulation under spring ice in a boreal lake

Abstract

A small range (∼ 1°C) of under‐ice water temperature is shown to result in remarkably different circulation regimes under spring ice in a deep, oligotrophic boreal lake. With the water column at < 4°C, melting of snow led to deepening vertical convection before ice break and a final depth of convection inversely correlated with earlier deep‐water temperature. We attribute that to the nonlinear dependence of water density on temperature, albeit further affected by stochastic weather factors. In four of nine study years, convection led to complete under‐ice overturn of the lake, indicating that this may not be uncommon in similar lakes with steep topography. River inflow and more intensive warming of water in the littoral zone also created a horizontal density differential, convection that involved flow down the sloping bottom and a lateral intrusion of this sinking water at a depth between the vertical convection and the quiescent deep‐water layers. The vertical and horizontal convection together produced a profile of temperature slightly increasing from the surface to the bottom of the convection layer. The contribution of horizontal convection to under‐ice mixing was interannually variable, and in one of the study years it eventually dominated under‐ice mixing. A thermal bar circulation regime developed occasionally and only in the open water between ice and shoreline. We identified five different under‐ice mixing regimes that form an interannually variable continuum of behavior during the ice melting period. The dependence on a narrow temperature range likely makes the circulation regime sensitive to a warming climate.