The ice regime of Lake Baikal from historical and satellite data: Relationship to air temperature, dynamical, and other factors

Abstract

We give an overview of the history of the ice cover studies in Lake Baikal and a detailed description of the temporal and spatial variability of Lake Baikal ice conditions based on satellite and historical data. We analyze the long-term evolution of ice conditions using historical data and recent observations from satellite altimetry and radiometry for 1992-2004 for northern, middle, and southern Baikal. These data show a recent (since the 1990s) tendency for colder winters, with earlier ice formation, later ice break-up, and ice duration increase. These observations are in agreement with the long-period cycles of air temperature variability (warming between the 1970s and 1990s, with a cooling phase afterwards). We then compare air temperature data from meteorological stations to ERA-40 reanalysis and suggest that ERA-40 data can be used to assess seasonal and interannual changes of air temperature for Lake Baikal. The ERA-40 data also indicate a recent tendency for colder winters and for warmer summers. We further analyze how the ice regime is influenced by air temperature and how this influence is affected by dynamic (wind field, currents) and other (bathymetry, precipitation, etc.) factors. We estimate the relationship between air temperature parameters and the timing of ice events (ice formation and fast ice duration) and show that air temperature has the strongest effect on the ice regime. Dynamic and other factors interfere with the thermal influence, resulting in a change of ice formation dates and ice duration compared to the relationship that takes into account only the influence of air temperature.

Mozingo Studies I. Ice phenology and limnological legacies in a mid-continental reservoir

“…In turn, ice-over date was a good predictor of ice thickness and of ice duration, exactly confirming the findings of Korhonen (2006). Once the ice is in place, its thickness and duration also correlate strongly with concurrent winter air temperatures (P≤0.003), as observed by others (Korhonen, 2006;Livingstone and Adrian, 2009); thus both winter temperatures and ice-over dates affect ice thickness and duration, as in Lake Baikal (Kouraev et al, 2007).…”

“…For example, air temperatures in November and December were strong influences of ice-over date in Lake Baikal, moderated somewhat by dynamic factors that may locally (Kouraev et al, 2007). Ice thickness showed a memory effect (i.e., a time lag) of ice-over date and winter conditions.…”

“…Also called time lags and lake memory, these are phenomena that influence future conditions (Martin et al, 2011;Kouraev et al, 2007). Limnological lore suggests that winter air temperatures are related to hypolimnion temperatures in the following summer.…”

Lake Volume Monitoring from Space

“…This includes a mix of both permanent and temporary lakes. The result is a high rate of evaporation in summertime, while in winter most of these lakes are covered with ice (Kouraev et al 2007). …”

The Performance of Altimeter Waveform Retrackers at Lake Baikal

“…Lake Baikal, located in Siberia, Russia, the world's deepest (maximum depth > 1.6 km), oldest (older than 25 million years), and largest in terms of storage, is increasingly warming and undergoing other environmental changes over the last six decades (Hampton et al 2008). Recent studies of Lake Baikal geophysical and climate change processes include the role of lake ice cover in climate and environmental change in Lake Baikal (Kouraev et al 2007), Lake Baikal tide modeling and lake seiche using lake gauge data (Timofeev et al 2009), and lake storage change observed from radar altimetry and space gravimetry (GRACE) (Hwang et al 2011). Here we choose Lake Baikal, an environmentally diverse lake undergoing climate change, to assess the performance of various radar altimeter retrackers for two different radar altimetry systems, ENVISAT and JASON-1.…”