Multi-year climate memory in shallow lake water levels

Abstract

Landscape hydrologic memory of meteorological cycles can have an important impact on catchment hydrological responses by propagating clustering of wet or dry conditions into extreme events. The non-linear and hysteretic hydrologic response functions driven by memory are often only studied at shorter temporal scales (event, season) despite larger interannual hydrologic responses evident in some systems. Within the Canadian Boreal, lakes and lake water levels provide an important indicator that can be used to assess the role of landscape memory on catchment hydrological function. Landscape memory has also been hypothesised to control the hydrological dynamics of shallow lake ecosystems that are also important biogeochemically and ecologically. Here we combine measurements of lake water levels in 26 lakes of varying type at varying temporal frequencies within the glaciated sub-humid Boreal Plain, to examine the impact and variability of interdecadal, decadal, multi-year, intra-annual memory on lake water levels. We show multi-annual hysteresis of precipitation-lake water levels with varied characteristics in space and time. These spatial variations in landscape memory are driven by differences in storage capacities controlled by heterogeneity in glacial landforms, wetland-forest landcover and lake properties. Thus, the propensity for drought years or wet years to persist or accumulate into extreme landscape drying or wetting varies significantly between different lake-landscape characteristics. We show how landscape memory is crucial to project lake water levels by defining spatial variability of the impact of periods of meteorological drought and deluge vital for understanding system sensitivity, duration of recovery and in turn infer resilience on Boreal Plain hydrology.