scholarly journals Big Questions, Few Answers About What Happens Under Lake Ice

Eos ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Hampton ◽  
Stephen Powers ◽  
Shawn Devlin ◽  
Diane McKnight
Keyword(s):  
Ice Cover ◽  
Lake Ice ◽  
Cold Temperatures

Scientists long eschewed studying lakes in winter, expecting that cold temperatures and ice cover limited activity below the surface. Recent findings to the contrary are changing limnologists’ views.

scholarly journals Terms and conditions of high-mountain lake ice-cover chemistry (Carpathians, Poland)

2015 ◽  
Vol 61 (230) ◽  
pp. 1207-1212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iwona Kurzyca ◽  
Adam Choiński ◽  
Joanna Pociask-Karteczka ◽  
Agnieszka Lawniczak ◽  
Marcin Frankowski
Keyword(s):  
Water Body ◽  
Ice Cover ◽  
Multilayered Structure ◽  
Mountain Lake ◽  
High Mountain ◽  
Lake Ice ◽  
High Mountain Lake ◽  
Spatial Diversification ◽  
The Tatra Mountains

AbstractWe discuss the results of an investigation of the chemical composition of the ice cover on the high-mountain lake Morskie Oko in the Tatra Mountains, Carpathians, Poland. In the years 2007–13, the ice cover was characterized by an average duration of 6 months, a thickness range of 0.40–1.14 m, and a multilayered structure with water or slush inclusion. In water from the melted ice cover, chloride (max. 69%) and sulphate (max. 51%) anions and ammonium (max. 66%) and calcium (max. 78%) cations predominated. Different concentrations of ions (F−, Cl−, NO3−, SO42−, Na+, K+, Mg2+, Ca2+, NH4+) in the upper, middle and bottom layers of ice were observed, along with long-term variability and spatial diversification within the ice layer over the lake. Snowpack lying on the ice and the water body under the ice were also investigated, and the influence on the ice cover of certain ions in elevated concentrations was observed (e.g. Cl− in the upper ice cover and the snowpack, and Ca2+ in the bottom ice cover and water body).

scholarly journals Quantitative and qualitative constraints on hind-casting the formation of multiyear lake-ice covers at Lake El'gygytgyn

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 1253-1269 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Nolan
Keyword(s):  
Water Exchange ◽  
Sediment Cores ◽  
Ice Cover ◽  
Lake Ice ◽  
Ice Growth ◽  
Temperature Reduction ◽  
Air Temperatures ◽  
Lake El’Gygytgyn ◽  
Oxygen Conditions ◽  
Multiyear Ice

Abstract. Analysis of the 3.6 Ma, 318 m long sediment core from Lake El'gygytgyn suggests that the lake was covered by ice for millennia at a time for much of its history and therefore this paper uses a suite of existing, simple, empirical degree-day models of lake-ice growth and decay to place quantitative constraints on air temperatures needed to maintain a permanent ice cover on the lake. We also provide an overview of the modern climatological and physical processes that relate to lake-ice growth and decay as a basis for evaluating past climate and environmental conditions. Our modeling results indicate that modern annual mean air temperature would only have to be reduced by 3.3 °C ± 0.9 °C to initiate a multiyear ice cover and a temperature reduction of at least 5.5 °C ± 1.0 °C is likely needed to completely eliminate direct air–water exchange of oxygen, conditions that have been inferred at Lake El'gygytgyn from the analysis of sediment cores. Once formed, a temperature reduction of only 1–3 °C relative to modern may be all that is required to maintain multiyear ice. We also found that formation of multiyear ice covers requires that positive degree days are reduced by about half the modern mean, from about +608 to +322. A multiyear ice cover can persist even with summer temperatures sufficient for a two-month long thawing period, including a month above +4 °C. Thus, it is likely that many summer biological processes and some lake-water warming and mixing may still occur beneath multiyear ice-covers even if air–water exchange of oxygen is severely restricted.

Lake ice phenology changes in the northern hemisphere

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yubao Qiu ◽  
Xingxing Wang ◽  
Matti Leppäranta ◽  
Bin Cheng ◽  
Yixiao Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
North America ◽  
Northern Hemisphere ◽  
Ice Cover ◽  
Passive Microwave ◽  
Lake Area ◽  
Lake Ice ◽  
Northern Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Break Up ◽  
Ice Phenology

<p>Lake-ice phenology is an essential indicator of climate change impact for different regions (Livingstone, 1997; Duguay, 2010), which helps understand the regional characters of synchrony and asynchrony. The observation of lake ice phenology includes ground observation and remote sensing inversion. Although some lakes have been observed for hundreds of years, due to the limitations of the observation station and the experience of the observers, ground observations cannot obtain the lake ice phenology of the entire lake. Remote sensing has been used for the past 40 years, in particular, has provided data covering the high mountain and high latitude regions, where the environment is harsh and ground observations are lacking. Remote sensing also provides a unified data source and monitoring standard, and the possibility of monitoring changes in lake ice in different regions and making comparisons between them. The existing remote sensing retrieval products mainly cover North America and Europe, and data for Eurasia is lacking (Crétaux et al., 2020).</p><p>Based on the passive microwave, the lake ice phenology of 522 lakes in the northern hemisphere during 1978-2020 was obtained, including Freeze-Up Start (FUS), Freeze-Up End (FUE), Break-Up Start (BUS), Break-Up End (BUE), and Ice Cover Duration (ICD). The ICD is the duration from the FUS to the BUE, which can directly reflect the ice cover condition. At latitudes north of 60°N, the average of ICD is approximately 8-9 months in North America and 5-6 months in Eurasia. Limited by the spatial resolution of the passive microwave, lake ice monitoring is mainly in Northern Europe. Therefore, the average of ICD over Eurasia is shorter, while the ICD is more than 6 months for most lakes in Russia. After 2000, the ICD has shown a shrinking trend, except northeastern North America (southeast of the Hudson Bay) and the northern Tibetan Plateau. The reasons for the extension of ice cover duration need to be analyzed with parameters, such as temperature, the lake area, and lake depth, in the two regions.</p>

scholarly journals Radiation Transmittance through lake ice in the 400–700 nm Range

1981 ◽  
Vol 27 (95) ◽  
pp. 57-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. J. Bolsenga
Keyword(s):  
Snow Cover ◽  
Ice Cover ◽  
Atmospheric Conditions ◽  
Lake Ice ◽  
Solar Altitude ◽  
Ice Surface ◽  
New Information ◽  
Cloudy Atmosphere ◽  
Abrupt Changes ◽  
Ann Arbor

AbstractSignificant new information on radiation transmittance through ice in the photosynthetically active range (400–700 nm) has been collected at an inland lake near Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A., and at one site on the Great Lakes (lat. 46° 46´ N., long. 84° 57´ W.). Radiation transmittance through clear, refrozen slush, and brash ice varied according to snow cover, ice type, atmospheric conditions, and solar altitude.Snow cover caused the greatest diminution of radiation. During periods of snow melt, radiation transmittance through snow-covered ice surfaces increased slightly. Moderate diurnal variations of radiation transmittance (about 5%) are attributed to solar altitude changes and associated changes in the direct- diffuse balance of solar radiation combined with the type of ice surface studied. Variations in radiation transmittance of nearly 20% over short periods of time are attributed to abrupt changes from a clear to a cloudy atmosphere.A two-layer reflectance–transmittance model illustrates the interaction of layers in an ice cover such as snow or frost overlying clear ice. Upper layers of high reflectance have considerable control on the overall transmittance and reflectance of an ice cover.

scholarly journals Calving Seasonality Associated With Melt‐Undercutting and Lake Ice Cover

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Mallalieu ◽  
Jonathan L. Carrivick ◽  
Duncan J. Quincey ◽  
Mark W. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Ice Cover ◽  
Lake Ice ◽  
Lake Ice Cover

scholarly journals Modeling the impediment of methane ebullition bubbles by seasonal lake ice

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (23) ◽  
pp. 6791-6811 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Greene ◽  
K. M. Walter Anthony ◽  
D. Archer ◽  
A. Sepulveda-Jauregui ◽  
K. Martinez-Cruz
Keyword(s):  
Growth Rate ◽  
Lake Water ◽  
Ice Cover ◽  
Controlling Factors ◽  
Ch4 Emission ◽  
Lake Ice ◽  
Ch4 Emissions ◽  
Interior Alaska ◽  
Methane Ebullition ◽  
Significant Flux

Abstract. Microbial methane (CH4) ebullition (bubbling) from anoxic lake sediments comprises a globally significant flux to the atmosphere, but ebullition bubbles in temperate and polar lakes can be trapped by winter ice cover and later released during spring thaw. This "ice-bubble storage" (IBS) constitutes a novel mode of CH4 emission. Before bubbles are encapsulated by downward-growing ice, some of their CH4 dissolves into the lake water, where it may be subject to oxidation. We present field characterization and a model of the annual CH4 cycle in Goldstream Lake, a thermokarst (thaw) lake in interior Alaska. We find that summertime ebullition dominates annual CH4 emissions to the atmosphere. Eighty percent of CH4 in bubbles trapped by ice dissolves into the lake water column in winter, and about half of that is oxidized. The ice growth rate and the magnitude of the CH4 ebullition flux are important controlling factors of bubble dissolution. Seven percent of annual ebullition CH4 is trapped as IBS and later emitted as ice melts. In a future warmer climate, there will likely be less seasonal ice cover, less IBS, less CH4 dissolution from trapped bubbles, and greater CH4 emissions from northern lakes.

Simulation of North American lake-ice cover characteristics under contemporary and future climate conditions

2011 ◽  
Vol 32 (5) ◽  
pp. 695-709 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yonas Dibike ◽  
Terry Prowse ◽  
Barrie Bonsal ◽  
Laurent de Rham ◽  
Tuomo Saloranta
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
Ice Cover ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
Lake Ice ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
Lake Ice Cover

scholarly journals Analysis of local AWS and NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data at Lake El'gygtytgyn, and its implications for maintaining multi-year lake-ice covers

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 1443-1483 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Nolan
Keyword(s):  
Full Range ◽  
Summer Rainfall ◽  
Barometric Pressure ◽  
Ice Cover ◽  
Warming Trend ◽  
Reanalysis Data ◽  
Lake Ice ◽  
Ice Dynamics ◽  
Air Temperatures ◽  
Perennial Ice

Abstract. We compared 7 years of local automated weather station (AWS) data to NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data to characterize the modern environment of Lake El'gygytgyn, in Chukotka Russia. We then used this comparison to estimate the air temperatures required to initiate and maintain multi-year lake-ice covers to aid in paleoclimate reconstructions of the 3.6 M years sediment record recovered from there. We present and describe data from our AWS from 2002–2008, which recorded air temperatures, relative humidity, precipitation, barometric pressure, and wind speed/direction, as well as subsurface soil moisture and temperature. Measured mean annual air temperature (MAAT) over this period was −10.4 °C with a slight warming trend during the measurement period. NCEP/NCAR reanalysis air temperatures compared well to this, with annual means within 0.1 to 2.0 °C of the AWS, with an overall mean 1.1 °C higher than the AWS, and daily temperature trends having a correlation of over 96% and capturing the full range of variation. After correcting for elevation differences, barometric pressure discrepancies occasionally reached as high as 20 mbar higher than the AWS particularly in winter, but the correlation in trends was high at 92%, indicating that synoptic-scale weather patterns driving local weather likely are being captured by the reanalysis data. AWS cumulative summer rainfall measurements ranged between 70–200 mm during the record. NCEP/NCAR reanalysis precipitation failed to predict daily events measured by the AWS, but largely captured the annual trends, though higher by a factor of 2–4. NCEP air temperatures showed a strong trend in MAAT over the 1961–2009 record, rising from a pre-1995 mean of −12.0 °C to a post-1994 mean of −9.8 °C. We found that nearly all of this change could be explained by changes in winter temperatures, with mean winter degree days (DD) rising from −5043 to −4340 after 1994 and a much smaller change in summer DD from +666 to +700. Thus, the NCEP record indicates that nearly all modern change in MAAT is driven by changes in winter (which promotes lake-ice growth) not summer (which promotes lake-ice melt). Whether this sensitivity is representative of paleo-conditions is unclear, but it is clear that the lake was unlikely to have initiated a multi-year ice cover since 1961 based on simple DD models of ice dynamics. Using these models we found that the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis mean MAAT over 1961–2009 would have to be at least 4 °C colder to initiate a multi-year ice cover, but more importantly that multi-year ice covers are largely controlled by summer melt rates at this location. Specifically we found that summer DD would have to drop by more than half the modern mean, from +640 to +280. Given that the reanalysis temperatures appears about 1 °C higher than reality, a MAAT cooling of 3 °C may be sufficient in the real world, but as described in the text we consider a cooling of −4°C ± 0.5 °C a reasonable requirement for multi-year ice covers. Also perhaps relevant to paleo-climate proxy interpretation, at temperatures cold enough to maintain a multi-year ice cover, the summer temperatures could still be sufficient for a two-month long thawing period, including a month at about +5 °C Thus it is likely that many summer biological processes and some lake-water warming and mixing may still have been occurring beneath perennial ice-covers; core proxies have already indicated that such perennial ice-covers may have persisted for tens of thousands of years at various times within the 3.6 M years record.

scholarly journals Response of ice cover on shallow lakes of the North Slope of Alaska to contemporary climate conditions (1950–2011): radar remote sensing and numerical modeling data analysis

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 3783-3821 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. M. Surdu ◽  
C. R. Duguay ◽  
L. C. Brown ◽  
D. Fernández Prieto
Keyword(s):  
Shallow Lakes ◽  
Ice Cover ◽  
Arctic Lakes ◽  
North Slope ◽  
Lake Ice ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
The North ◽  
North Slope Of Alaska ◽  
Sar Data ◽  
Ice Model

Abstract. Air temperature and winter precipitation changes over the last five decades have impacted the timing, duration, and thickness of the ice cover on Arctic lakes as shown by recent studies. In the case of shallow tundra lakes, many of which are less than 3 m deep, warmer climate conditions could result in thinner ice covers and consequently, to a smaller fraction of lakes freezing to their bed in winter. However, these changes have not yet been comprehensively documented. The analysis of a 20 yr time series of ERS-1/2 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data and a numerical lake ice model were employed to determine the response of ice cover (thickness, freezing to the bed, and phenology) on shallow lakes of the North Slope of Alaska (NSA) to climate conditions over the last six decades. Analysis of available SAR data from 1991–2011, from a sub-region of the NSA near Barrow, shows a reduction in the fraction of lakes that freeze to the bed in late winter. This finding is in good agreement with the decrease in ice thickness simulated with the Canadian Lake Ice Model (CLIMo), a lower fraction of lakes frozen to the bed corresponding to a thinner ice cover. Observed changes of the ice cover show a trend toward increasing floating ice fractions from 1991 to 2011, with the greatest change occurring in April, when the grounded ice fraction declined by 22% (α = 0.01). Model results indicate a trend toward thinner ice covers by 18–22 cm (no-snow and 53% snow depth scenarios, α = 0.01) during the 1991–2011 period and by 21–38 cm (α = 0.001) from 1950–2011. The longer trend analysis (1950–2011) also shows a decrease in the ice cover duration by ∼24 days consequent to later freeze-up dates by 5.9 days (α = 0.1) and earlier break-up dates by 17.7–18.6 days (α = 0.001).

scholarly journals Gas properties of winter lake ice in Northern Sweden: biogeochemical processes and implication for carbon gas release

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 9639-9669 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Boereboom ◽  
M. Depoorter ◽  
S. Coppens ◽  
J.-L. Tison
Keyword(s):  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Open Water ◽  
Ice Cover ◽  
Boreal Lakes ◽  
Gas Content ◽  
Lake Ice ◽  
Mixing Ratios ◽  
Discontinuous Permafrost ◽  
History Of ◽  
Gas Properties

Abstract. This paper describes gas composition, total gas content and bubbles characteristics in winter lake ice for four adjacent lakes in a discontinuous permafrost area. Our gas mixing ratios suggest that gas exchange occurs between the bubbles and the water before entrapment in the ice. Comparison between lakes enabled us to identify 2 major "bubbling events" shown to be related to a regional drop of atmospheric pressure. Further comparison demonstrates that winter lake gas content is strongly dependent on hydrological connections: according to their closed/open status with regards to water exchange, lakes build up more or less greenhouse gases (GHG) in their water and ice cover during the winter, and release it during spring melt. These discrepancies between lakes need to be taken into account when establishing a budget for permafrost regions. Our analysis allows us to present a new classification of bubbles, according to their gas properties. Our methane emission budget (from 6.52 10−5 to 12.7 mg CH4 m−2 d−1) for the three months of winter ice cover is complementary to the other budget estimates, taking into account the variability of the gas distribution in the ice and between the various types of lakes. Most available studies on boreal lakes have focused on quantifying GHG emissions from sediment by means of various systems collecting gases at the lake surface, and this mainly during the summer "open water" period. Only few of these have looked at the gas enclosed in the winter ice-cover itself. Our approach enables us to integrate, for the first time, the history of winter gas emission for this type of lakes.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document