The Caspian Sea in 2010, one of the few large lakes saved from rising temperatures.
Credit: NASA
WASHINGTON: The Earth's largest lakes have warmed up over the past 25 years in response to climate change, the US space agency NASA said, announcing the first such global study of its kind.
Scientists Philipp Schneider and Simon Hook of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California used thermal infrared satellite data to measure the night-time surface temperature of 167 lakes around the world during summer, according to a statement from NASA.
"They reported an average warming rate of 0.81 degrees Fahrenheit [0.45°C], per decade, with some lakes warming as much as 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit [1°C], per decade," it said.
Consistent with global warming
"The results were consistent with the expected changes associated with global warming," it said. Researchers found the "largest and most consistent area of warming was northern Europe," while the "warming trend was slightly weaker in southeastern Europe, around the Black and Caspian seas and Kazakhstan.”
"The trends increased slightly farther east in Siberia, Mongolia and northern China."
The southwestern United States experienced "slightly higher" trends than the Great Lakes region, while the tropics and mid-latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere showed "weaker" warming, NASA said.
Likely to affect lake ecosystems
"Our analysis provides a new, independent data source for assessing the impact of climate change over land around the world," said Schneider, lead author of the study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
"The results have implications for lake ecosystems, which can be adversely affected by even small water temperature changes."
Small changes in water temperature can result in algal blooms that can make a lake toxic to fish or result in the introduction of non-native species that change the lake's natural ecosystem.
NASA selected bodies of water that were at least 193 square miles (500 km2) or larger, and had significant amounts of water away from the shoreline so that land temperature changes did not interfere with measurements.
oh no warming!
Warming up temperatures have always meant great new achievements in human history, there was a warm up during the Greek period, there was a warm up during the heights of the Roman Empire and at the end of the Middle Ages.
We call this period Renaissance.
The period between 1300 and 1700 was called the Little Ice Age, better known as, how funny, the Dark Ages. Why is it that each time there is a change in the environment, it is always perceived as a threat ? Lake temparatures have risen by 1 degree and here are the algeae creeping out, and invasive new species. Woo! That's frightening. If the climate is really rising, well that's good news for the human race. It always looks like we are assessing the destruction of this world when we are talking about environment but Earth is only mutating as it always did. Does not even need us to do this.
These kind of articles seem to tell us more on our frame of mind - our bad conscience of what we are doing to the planet -, but just to put things in perspective, hundred of million of years after the human race will be extinct, the Earth will still be host to all kinds of new species. As George Carlin puts it, in a funny way, maybe Earth wanted to create plastic, but it was not able to do so alone, so it used us to do the job. In all these billions of years, the lifespan of Earth, we are just a dim flash, so give me a break and drink a beer, man.
Lake warming
Increased water temperature does not necessarily eqate to the next environmental armageddon. Why do waters (fresh or salt)nearer the equator have more aquatic mass and diversity? THE WATER IS WARMER, STUPID!
^^ ... two reasons science doesn't work on the public.
Do the above posters understand the implications of Climate Change? Yes, the Earth has undergone warming and cooling periods (seen through ice cores, lake sediments, geological records, etc...), but those periods took tens of thousands of years to millions of years. ALL of those cycle occurred naturally, allowing for natural feed back systems (both positive and negative) to occur and maintain balance.
With humans adding CO2 (over the natural occurrence) which in turns aides in the release of Methane (10x the heat absorber of CO2) from the warming Oceans and thawing tundra, we are (at the very least) exacerbating natural climate change. Because of that it is unknown how many of the natural feedback systems will react and whether or not they can handle what we are throwing at them.
It is insanely too simplistic to say "warmer = better" because there is more diverse life in the tropics.
Warmer = possibility of no ice caps = rise in sea-level = devastated coasts.
Warmer = more energy in ocean waters = potential for stronger hurricanes.
Warmer = more energy in the atmosphere = larger capacity for water in the air = increased frequency of heavy precipitation events = more flash floods. (Also, more energy = larger releases which may equate in more severe weather and tornadoes)
Warmer = more stress on crops = less farmland in areas that are already 'borderline' = larger stress on global food supply. (Note, as we get warmer, only so much land will become farmable... which is much less than what we could lose)
Warmer = as ice caps melt they affect the Gulf Stream which brings a warm current (and air) to the NE US and Northern Europe (making it a warmer/more habitable climate ... note much of Europe is at the same latitude as Canada) = may shut the Gulf Stream down or alter it = colder Northern Europe = major adaptation issues and stress on crops/farmland.
Warmer does not mean better. If it occurred over thousands of years (as it has in the past) adaptation would likely occur on its own without much worry. But major warming on the scale of decades causes stress on virtually all infrastructures and requires rapid (costly) adaptation. And where would it end?