Abstract
Studies of future 21st century climate warming in lakes along altitudinal gradients have been partially obscured by local atmospheric phenomena unresolved in climate models. Here we forced the physical lake model Simstrat with locally downscaled climate models under three future scenarios to investigate the impact on 29 Swiss lakes, varying in size along an altitudinal gradient. Results from the worst-case scenario project substantial change at the end of the century in duration of ice-cover at mid to high altitude (−2 to −107 days), stratification duration (winter −17 to −84 days, summer −2 to 73 days), while lower and especially mid altitude (present day mean annual air temperature from 9 °C to 3 °C) dimictic lakes risk shift to monomictic regimes (seven out of the eight lakes). Analysis further indicates that for many lakes shifts in mixing regime can be avoided by adhering to the most stringent scenario.
Highlights
Studies of future 21st century climate warming in lakes along altitudinal gradients have been partially obscured by local atmospheric phenomena unresolved in climate models
An important challenge when modelling lakes along an altitudinal gradient is that the altitude-dependence of climate forcing in Regional Climate Model (RCM) projections is represented by averages over individual grid cells
The complex topography of mountainous areas can strongly affect local atmospheric conditions. We address this challenge by using recently developed RCM projections downscaled to the local scale for Switzerland[32]
Summary
Studies of future 21st century climate warming in lakes along altitudinal gradients have been partially obscured by local atmospheric phenomena unresolved in climate models. Projected changes in other thermal properties, such as lake bottom temperature and the duration of summer and winter stratification as well as ice cover, depend on individual lake properties such as lake volume and altitude.
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