Trends of lake temperature, mixing depth and ice cover thickness of European lakes during the last four decades

Lakes are particularly vulnerable ecosystems to global warming. Surface temperature of most lakes in the world has significantly increased. Here, we analysed time-series of water temperature, mixing-depth, and ice depth of 51 European lakes over the last four decades. We used data of surface temperature, total layer water temperature, mix-layer temperature, mix-layer depth, and ice cover depth obtained from the ERA5-land reanalysis dataset. Our main objectives were a) to identify significant changes of the examined variables that have occurred from 1981 to 2019 and h) to assess the variability of changes in relation with geographical and lake morphological gradients. To this end, time series analysis was conducted using generalized additive models (GAMs). In addition, we quantified the magnitude of change by estimating the Sen's slopes for each variable and then we examined the variability of these slopes to geographical and lake morphological parameters using GAMs. Our results confirmed that water temperature parameters (surface, total-layer and mix-layer temperature) have significantly increased for all lakes during the last four decades. We also found significant changes of the mixing depth for 14 lakes. In addition, the lake ice depth has significantly decreased in all fifteen lakes of the subarctic climate region. Finally, we showed that the Seds slopes depend on the geographic coordinates and the elevation of the lakes, whereas lake morphometry (e.g. depth has a smaller effect on the magnitude of changes. These findings hint that lake ecosystems of Europe have substantially changed over the last forty years and urge the need to take precautionary measures to prevent future implications for the freshwater biota.

Automated summary

The study analyzed the changes in 51 European lakes over the past four decades and found that the water temperature, mixing depth, and ice depth have significantly changed. The study also revealed that the magnitude of these changes is influenced by the geographic coordinates and elevation of the lakes, while lake morphology has a smaller effect.