On the climate and weather of mountain and sub‐arctic lakes in Europe and their susceptibility to future climate change

Abstract

Summary1. The complex terrain and heterogeneous nature of the mountain environment coupled with remoteness from major centres of human activity makes mountains challenging locations for meteorological investigations. Mountainous areas tend to have more varied and more extreme weather than lowlands.2. The EMERGE program has the primary aim of assessing the status of remote mountain and sub‐arctic lakes throughout Europe for the first time. In this study, we describe the main features of the climate, ice‐cover durations and recent temperature trends of these areas. The main weather characteristics of European mountain and sub‐arctic lakes are their cold temperatures and year‐round precipitation. Mean annual temperatures are generally close to 0 °C, and maximum summer temperatures reasonably close to 10 °C.3. Maritime versus continental settings determine the main differences in annual‐temperature range among lake districts (10.5 °C in Scotland to 26.7 °C in Northern Finland), and a similar factor for ice‐cover duration. Radiation ranges from low (120 W m−2) in the high latitude sub‐arctic and high (237 W m−2) in the southern ranges of the Pyrenees and Rila. Similarly, precipitation is high in the main Alpine chain (250 cm year−1 in the Central Southern Alps) and low in the continental sub‐arctic (65 cm year−1 in Northern Finland).4. The main temporal patterns in air temperature follow those of the adjacent lowlands. All the lake districts warmed during the last century. Spring temperature trends were highest in Finland; summer trends were weak everywhere; autumn trends were strongest in the west, in the Pyrenees and western Alps; while winter trends varied markedly, being high in the Pyrenees and Alps, low in Scotland and Norway and negative in Finland.5. Two new, limnological case studies on Lake Redon, in the Pyrenees, highlight the sensitivity of remote lakes to projected changes in the global climate. These two case studies involve close linkages between extreme chemical‐precipitation events and synoptic wind‐patterns, and between thermocline behaviour and features of the large‐scale circulation.6. Individual lakes can be ultra‐responsive to climate change. Even modest changes in future air temperatures will lead to major changes in lake temperatures and ice‐cover duration and hence probably affect their ecological status.