Cold Water and High Ice Cover on Great Lakes in Spring 2014

Clites, Anne H.; Wang, Jia; Campbell, K. B.; Gronewold, Andrew D.; Assel, Raymond A.; Bai, Xeuzhi; Leshkevich, George

doi:10.1002/2014eo340001

Cited by 24 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org /10.5194/hess-2017- comparison between two unusually warm (2012-2013) and unusually cold (2013-2014) winters (Clites et al, 2014).…”

Section: Methods 25mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the Laurentian Great Lakes (hereafter referred to as the Great Lakes), sensible and latent heat fluxes play an important role in the seasonal and interannual variability of critical physical processes including spring and fall lake evaporation (Spence et al, 2013), the onset, retreat, and 15 spatial extent of winter ice cover (Van Cleave et al, 2014;Clites et al, 2014), and air-mass modification including processes such as lake-effect snow (Wright et al, 2013). These phenomena, in turn, impact lake water levels (Gronewold et al, 2013;Lenters, 2001), both atmospheric and lake circulation patterns (Beletsky et al, 2006), and the fate and transport of watershed-borne pollutants (Michalak et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Evaluating and improving modeled turbulent heat fluxes across the North American Great Lakes

Charusombat¹,

Fujisaki‐Manome²,

Gronewold³

et al. 2018

Preprint

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“…Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org /10.5194/hess-2017- comparison between two unusually warm (2012-2013) and unusually cold (2013-2014) winters (Clites et al, 2014).…”

Section: Methods 25mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating and improving modeled turbulent heat fluxes across the North American Great Lakes

Charusombat¹,

Fujisaki‐Manome²,

Gronewold³

et al. 2018

Preprint

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“…The Great Lakes' rapid warming may be viewed as an abrupt LST increase from 1997 to 1998 in response to the strong 1997–1998 El Niño episode (Assel ; Clites et al ), followed by a sustained elevation of the LSTs (Gronewold et al ), or alternatively, in response to the shift of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) toward its negative phase (Van Cleave et al ). The abrupt change from 1997 to 1998 (Fig.…”

Section: Decadal Regime Shift and Abrupt 1997/1998 Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Recent accelerated warming of the Laurentian Great Lakes: Physical drivers

et al. 2016

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The primary drivers of the recent accelerated warming of the Laurentian Great Lakes from 1982 to 2012 are explored through observations, remote sensing, and regional climate model experiments. The study focuses on the abrupt warming from 1997 to 1998 as a proxy for the long‐term warming trend. The lake surface warming has been heterogeneous in both space and time, ranging from moderate warming in late spring over the southern lakes and shallow areas of the northern lakes to strong warming in mid‐summer over the northern, deep lake areas. The greatest lake warming between 1997 and 1998 occurs over the deepest areas of Lake Superior during mid‐summer, primarily arising from enhanced heat accumulation during the mild winter of 1997/1998 and amplified by greater incoming surface solar radiation and air temperature during the spring of 1998, according to model experiments. The mild winter condition, together with the increased solar radiation and air temperature during spring, causes an earlier onset of springtime stratification, resulting in enhanced heat absorption by surface water and thereby contributing to lake surface warming during the subsequent summer in 1998 compared with 1997. In contrast, the modest peak warming over southern lakes and shallow areas of northern lakes from 1997 to 1998 is a rapid response to synchronous increases in solar radiation and air temperature during May between the 2 yr. Changes in antecedent wintertime lake ice cover are found to have played only a minor role in the accelerated warming trend of the Laurentian Great Lakes.

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“…In a study by Austin and Colman [], surface water temperature in Lake Superior was reported to be increasing at a faster rate (0.12°C/yr) than the surrounding air temperature through a positive feedback involving lake temperature, absorption of the surface heat flux and ice coverage [ Austin and Colman , ]. In addition, large climate variability such as extremely cold water and high ice coverage on the Great Lakes has been frequently observed [ Wang et al ., ; Clites et al ., ]. Strong “thermal inertia” is considered one of the major reasons for the important leads and lags between water temperature, evaporation and ice coverage in the coupled lake‐atmosphere system [ Spence et al ., ; Lenters et al ., ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An investigation of the thermal response to meteorological forcing in a hydrodynamic model of Lake Superior

Xue

Schwab

2015

J. Geophys. Res. Oceans

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Lake Superior, the largest lake in the world by surface area and third largest by volume, features strong spatiotemporal thermal variability due to its immense size and complex bathymetry. The objectives of this study are to document our recent modeling experiences on the simulation of the lake thermal structure and to explore underlying dynamic explanations of the observed modeling success. In this study, we use a three‐dimensional hydrodynamic model (FVCOM—Finite Volume Community Ocean Model) and an assimilative weather forecasting model (WRF—Weather Research and Forecasting Model) to study the annual heating and cooling cycle of Lake Superior. Model experiments are carried out with meteorological forcing based on interpolation of surface weather observations, on WRF and on Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) reanalysis data, respectively. Model performance is assessed through comparison with satellite products and in situ measurements. Accurate simulations of the lake thermal structure are achieved through (1) adapting the COARE algorithm in the hydrodynamic model to derive instantaneous estimates of latent/sensible heat fluxes and upward longwave radiation based on prognostic surface water temperature simulated within the model as opposed to precomputing them with an assumed surface water temperature; (2) estimating incoming solar radiation and downward longwave radiation based on meteorological measurements as opposed to meteorological model‐based estimates; (3) using the weather forecasting model to provide high‐resolution dynamically constrained wind fields as opposed to wind fields interpolated from station observations. Analysis reveals that the key to the modeling success is to resolve the lake‐atmosphere interactions and apply appropriate representations of different meteorological forcing fields, based on the nature of their spatiotemporal variability. The close agreement between model simulation and observations also suggests that the 3‐D hydrodynamic model can provide reliable spatiotemporal estimates of heat budgets over Lake Superior and similar systems. Although there have been previous studies which analyzed the impact of the spatiotemporal variability of overwater wind fields on lake circulation, we believe this is the first detailed analysis of the importance of spatiotemporal variability of heat flux components on hydrodynamic simulation of 3‐D thermal structure in a lake.

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Cold Water and High Ice Cover on Great Lakes in Spring 2014

Cited by 24 publications

References 9 publications

Evaluating and improving modeled turbulent heat fluxes across the North American Great Lakes

Evaluating and improving modeled turbulent heat fluxes across the North American Great Lakes

Recent accelerated warming of the Laurentian Great Lakes: Physical drivers

An investigation of the thermal response to meteorological forcing in a hydrodynamic model of Lake Superior

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