Towards critical white ice conditions in lakes under global warming

Weyhenmeyer, Gesa A. and Obertegger, Ulrike and Rudebeck, Hugo and Jakobsson, Ellinor and Jansen, Joachim and Zdorovennova, Galina and Bansal, Sheel and Block, Benjamin D. and Carey, Cayelan C. and Doubek, Jonathan P. and Dugan, Hilary and Erina, Oxana and Fedorova, Irina and Fischer, Janet M. and Grinberga, Laura and Grossart, Hans-Peter and Kangur, Külli and Knoll, Lesley B. and Laas, Alo and Lepori, Fabio and Meier, Jacob and Palshin, Nikolai and Peternell, Mark and Pulkkanen, Merja and Rusak, James A. and Sharma, Sapna and Wain, Danielle and Zdorovennov, Roman (2022) Towards critical white ice conditions in lakes under global warming. Nature Communications, 13 (1). ISSN 2041-1723

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Abstract

The quality of lake ice is of uppermost importance for ice safety and under-ice ecology, but its temporal and spatial variability is largely unknown. Here we conducted a coordinated lake ice quality sampling campaign across the Northern Hemisphere during one of the warmest winters since 1880 and show that lake ice during 2020/2021 commonly consisted of unstable white ice, at times contributing up to 100% to the total ice thickness. We observed that white ice increased over the winter season, becoming thickest and constituting the largest proportion of the ice layer towards the end of the ice cover season when fatal winter drownings occur most often and light limits the growth and reproduction of primary producers. We attribute the dominance of white ice before ice-off to air temperatures varying around the freezing point, a condition which occurs more frequently during warmer winters. Thus, under continued global warming, the prevalence of white ice is likely to substantially increase during the critical period before ice-off, for which we adjusted commonly used equations for human ice safety and light transmittance through ice.

Item Type:	Scientific journal article, Newspaper article or Magazine article
Subjects:	Biological Sciences > Biology > Marine/Freshwater biology > Freshwater biology Biological Sciences > Biology > Ecology Biological Sciences > Biology > Ecology > Ecosystem ecology & land use Physical sciences > Science of aquatic & terrestrial environments Physical sciences > Science of aquatic & terrestrial environments > Climatology Physical sciences > Science of aquatic & terrestrial environments > Climatology > Climate & climate change Physical sciences > Science of aquatic & terrestrial environments > Glaciology & cryospheric systems
Department/unit:	Dipartimento ambiente costruzioni e design > Istituto scienze della Terra
Depositing User:	Fabio Lepori
Date Deposited:	30 Aug 2022 11:20
Last Modified:	30 Aug 2022 11:23
URI:	http://repository.supsi.ch/id/eprint/13505

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