Project Details
Projekt
Climatic impact on temperature and mixing regime of polymictic lakes and its consequences for lake ecosystems
Applicant
Dr. Horst Behrendt (†)
Subject Area
Hydrogeology, Hydrology, Limnology, Urban Water Management, Water Chemistry, Integrated Water Resources Management
Term
from 2004 to 2010
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5429836
The project aims at estimation of the freshwater lakes response to possible climatic changes. The study is focused on characteristics of vertical mixing in small or polymictic lakes (i.e., those mixed till the bottom at least once during summer heating periods), which are majority of the European lakes. Special attention is to be paid to possible climatically-driven switching of the lake mixing regime between polymictic and dimictic ones that would effect drastically the lake`s ecolopy. As a result, criteria will be elaborated, associating possibility of such regime transition with existing climatic trends. A shallow lake physical model will be developted for this purpose, describing mixing and heat exchange processes in the entire sediments-water-ice system. Parameterization of lake morphometry in frames of one-dimensional modeling approach is foreseen as an important result of the project. Subsequent model experiments and comprehensive data analysis will allow determinling the relation between annual micing cycle, climatic conditions and lake morphometry. The second step will consist in analysis of possible changes in hydrological regime of German lakes based on atmospheric input from the modern climatic scenarios for the next 50 years. Thus, a background will be created for estimation of shallow lake ecosystem response to variability in atmospheric forcing on climatic scales. Intergration of the new physical model into the shallow lake ecosystem model EMMO will be performed and first estimations of climatic changes impact on lake biologcial communities will be given.
DFG Programme
Priority Programmes
