New NASA study tracks world’s warming lakes

The global effects could be even more serious, because higher lake temperatures could trigger the conversion of billions of tons of carbon stored in lake sediments to methane and carbon dioxide (CO2), in a feedback effect that could accelerate global warming.

Lakes are warming in rapid rates all across the world, a new study found. Erratic changes in water temperature are said to affect various parts of the ecosystem and climate change is to be blamed.

Study co-author Simon Hook, science division manager at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said satellite measurements provide a broad view of lake temperatures over the entire globe.

The temperature increase-a summertime warming of about a third of a degree per decade over 25 years-is “pretty modest”, says lake biologist Peter Leavitt of the University of Regina in Canada, who did not participate in the study.

Researchers noted that the lakes which were warming at about 0.34 degrees Celsius on an average every decade were greater than the rate at which the atmosphere or the ocean were warming and could be fraught with profound effects.

Hotter lakes will cause algae blooms to increase by 20 percent over the next century, and toxic algae blooms to increase by 5 percent, scientists suggest. That might not sound like much, but when lakes warm up, toxic clouds of algae can bloom, fish habitats can be disrupted and invasive species now held at bay by Superior’s inhospitable cold might be able to make themselves at home.

“Society depends on surface water for the vast majority of human uses”, study co-author Stephanie Hampton, director of Washington State University’s Center for Environmental Research, Education and Outreach, said in another press release. Lake waters are not exclusively important for drinking, it is also vital in energy generation, crop irrigation and manufacturing operations. “Protein from freshwater fish is especially important in the developing world”, affirmed Hampton.

Temperature is one of the most fundamental and critical properties of water.

The study is the largest of its kind and the first to use a combination of long-term “from the lake” measurements and satellite data.

New research indicates that lakes are warming more than twice as fast as the world’s oceans.

Interestingly, the study found that lakes in southeastern US states like Alabama, Kentucky, Georgia, Tennessee and West Virginia are warming significantly more slowly than the global average.

The database assesses the global and regional patterns of water temperature change over 25 years for 235 lakes. Investigators have used both satellite and hand measurements to get a clear picture of how warm temperatures have become in the past decades. For example, ice covering lakes in the north continues to decline, leading to warmer waters. Also, while satellite measurements go back 30 years, some lake measurements go back more than a century, told the EurekAlert. The situation was naturally worse for northern climates, where they warmed by 1.3 Fahrenheit per decade, which has led to worrying consequences.

The lakes that presented the highest warming rates are Lake Tahoe, Ontario, the Dead Sea, the Great Lakes Huron, Ontario and Superior Lake Washington and MI.

Temperature increases close to or above the average.

The study, by a team of global scientists, analyzed data from hundreds of lakes around the world between 1985 and 2009.

“There is an urgent need to incorporate climate impacts into vulnerability assessments and adaptation efforts for lakes, not just in New Zealand, but around the world”.