Ice Regime of Transbaikalia Lakes in the Present-Day Warming

Abstract

The problem of the climate change impact on the ice regime of lakes has become topical in view of the revealed (observed) shortening of the freeze-up duration and a decrease in the ice thickness for many years. The relationship between timing and duration of the ice events and climate characteristics had been found. The influence of climate change on the ice regime in the Transbaikalia was previously estimated by the example of the Ivano-Arakhley lakes. In this work we determined the trends of changes of the following parameters: air temperature, the duration of freeze-up and the maximal ice thickness as well as the reliability of these trends on lakes Arakhley, Shakshinsky, Bolshoy Leprindo, Gusinoye, Baunt, Sosnovoye. The least-squares method was used to determine the long-term trends; consistency of the changes in the studied characteristics was evaluated by means of the correlation analysis. The significance of the trends and correlation coefficients was evaluated using Student's t-statistics.