Abstract
Extreme weather can have a substantial influence on lakes and is expected to become more frequent with climate change. We explored the influence of one particular extreme event, Storm Ophelia, on the physical and chemical environment of England’s largest lake, Windermere. We found that the substantial influence of Ophelia on meteorological conditions at Windermere, in particular wind speed, resulted in a 25-fold increase (relative to the study-period average) in the wind energy flux at the lake-air interface. Following Ophelia, there was a short-lived mixing event in which the Schmidt stability decreased by over 100 Jm−2 and the thermocline deepened by over 10 m during a 12-h period. As a result of changes to the strength of stratification, Ophelia also changed the internal seiche regime of Windermere with the dominant seiche period increasing from ~ 17 h pre-storm to ~ 21 h post-storm. Following Ophelia, there was an upwelling of cold and low-oxygenated waters at the southern-end of the lake. This had a substantial influence on the main outflow of Windermere, the River Leven, where dissolved oxygen concentrations decreased by ~ 48%, from 9.3 to 4.8 mg L−1, while at the mid-lake monitoring station in Windermere, it decreased by only ~ 3%. This study illustrates that the response of a lake to extreme weather can cause important effects downstream, the influence of which may not be evident at the lake surface. To understand the impact of future extreme events fully, the whole lake and downstream-river system need to be studied together.
Highlights
Extreme climatic events, such as storms, high winds, floods and heat waves, can have a major influence on aquatic ecosystems (Robson and Hamilton 2003; Jankowski et al 2006; Tsai et al 2008; Jöhnk et al 2008; Giling et al 2017; Kasprzak et al 2017; Ji et al 2018)
Ophelia had a substantial influence on meteorological conditions at Windermere, in particular surface air temperature and wind speed (Fig. S1)
We investigated the influence of Storm Ophelia on the physical and chemical environment of Windermere, the largest natural lake in England, as well as the outflowing river, the Leven
Summary
Extreme climatic events, such as storms, high winds, floods and heat waves, can have a major influence on aquatic ecosystems (Robson and Hamilton 2003; Jankowski et al 2006; Tsai et al 2008; Jöhnk et al 2008; Giling et al 2017; Kasprzak et al 2017; Ji et al 2018). By disrupting the vertical thermal structure and mixing regime of lakes, storms can have a major influence on the ecosystem (Giling et al 2017; Kasprzak et al 2017). A detailed understanding of the impact of extreme weather on lake ecosystems is essential for climate change impact and water management studies (Zhu et al 2014; Michalak 2016)
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