On the use of averaged indicators to assess lakes' thermal response to changes in climatic conditions

Abstract

Studies on the impact of climate change in lakes have mainly focused on the average response of lake surface temperature during three summer months (July, August, September, usually termed JAS). Focusing on the Laurentian Great Lakes, we challenge this common assumption by showing that the thermal behaviour is diversified in time both among different lakes and within a single one. Deep regions experience a stronger warming concentrated in early summer, mainly due to anticipated stratification, while shallow parts respond more uniformly throughout the year. To perform such analysis, we use the difference between the five warmest and coldest years in a series of 20 years as a proxy of possible effects of climate alterations, and compare the warming of lake surface temperature with that of air temperature. In this way, based on past observations obtained from satellite images, we show how the warming is heterogeneously distributed in time and in space, and that the quantification of lakes' thermal response to climate change is chiefly influenced by the time window used in the analysis. Should we be more careful when considering averaged indicators of lake thermal response to climate change?