Arctic lakes show strong decadal trend in earlier spring ice-out

The timing of the seasonal freeze-thaw cycle of arctic lakes affects ecological processes and land-atmosphere energy fluxes. We carried out detailed ice-phenology mapping of arctic lakes, based on daily surface-reflectance time series for 2000–2013 from MODIS at 250 m spatial resolution. We used over 13,300 lakes, area >1 km2, in five study areas distributed evenly across the circumpolar Arctic — the first such phenological dataset. All areas showed significant trends towards an earlier break-up, stronger than previously reported. The mean shift in break-up start ranged from −0.10 days/year (Northern Europe) to −1.05 days/year (central Siberia); the shift in break-up end was between −0.14 and −0.72 days/year. Finally, we explored the effect of temperature on break-up timing and compared results among study areas. The 0 °C isotherm shows the strongest relationship (r = 0.56–0.81) in all study areas. If the trend in early break-up continues, rapidly changing ice phenology will likely generate significant, arctic-wide impacts.

[1]  Guido Grosse,et al.  Recent lake ice‐out phenology within and among lake districts of Alaska, U.S.A , 2013 .

[2]  Per Jönsson,et al.  TIMESAT - a program for analyzing time-series of satellite sensor data , 2004, Comput. Geosci..

[3]  James P. McNamara,et al.  Arctic Landscapes in Transition: Responses to Thawing Permafrost , 2010 .

[4]  J. Magnuson,et al.  Oscillatory dynamics do not mask linear trends in the timing of ice breakup for Northern Hemisphere lakes from 1855 to 2004 , 2014, Climatic Change.

[5]  Masson-Delmotte,et al.  The Physical Science Basis , 2007 .

[6]  Johanna Korhonen,et al.  Long-term changes in lake ice cover in Finland* , 2006 .

[7]  Benjamin M. Jones,et al.  Depth, ice thickness, and ice‐out timing cause divergent hydrologic responses among Arctic lakes , 2015 .

[8]  C. Duguay,et al.  Past and Future Changes in Arctic Lake and River Ice , 2011, AMBIO.

[9]  G. Weyhenmeyer,et al.  Lakes as sentinels of climate change , 2009, Limnology and oceanography.

[10]  Martin P. Lacroix,et al.  Ice in the Environment: Proceedings of the 16th IAHR International Symposium on Ice Dunedin, New Zealand, 2nd–6th December 2002 International Association of Hydraulic Engineering and Research TRENDS IN RIVER-ICE BREAKUP AND RELATED TEMPERATURE CONTROLS , 2003 .

[11]  Warwick F. Vincent,et al.  Polar Lakes and Rivers , 2008 .

[12]  Claude R. Duguay,et al.  Response of ice cover on shallow lakes of the North Slope of Alaska to contemporary climate conditions (1950–2011): radar remote-sensing and numerical modeling data analysis , 2013 .

[13]  C. Duguay,et al.  The response and role of ice cover in lake-climate interactions , 2010 .

[14]  Long-term characteristics of ice phenology in Karelian lakes , 2013 .

[15]  Patrick M. Crill,et al.  Freshwater Methane Emissions Offset the Continental Carbon Sink , 2011, Science.

[16]  Samuel J. Purkis,et al.  Remote Sensing and Global Environmental Change: Purkis/Remote Sensing and Global Environmental Change , 2011 .

[17]  N. Anderson,et al.  Holocene carbon burial by lakes in SW Greenland , 2009 .

[18]  D. G. George,et al.  The Impact of Climate Change on European Lakes , 2010 .

[19]  M. Jeffries,et al.  High Arctic lakes as sentinel ecosystems: Cascading regime shifts in climate, ice cover, and mixing , 2009 .

[20]  Xuebin Zhang,et al.  Temperature and precipitation trends in Canada during the 20th century , 2000, Data, Models and Analysis.

[21]  Roger G. Barry,et al.  Freeze-up and Break-up of Lakes as an Index of Temperature Changes during the Transition Seasons: A Case Study for Finland , 1986 .

[22]  P. Döll,et al.  Development and validation of a global database of lakes, reservoirs and wetlands , 2004 .

[23]  Christopher O. Justice,et al.  Land Remote Sensing and Global Environmental Change , 2011 .

[24]  M. Sharp,et al.  Ecological Implications of Changes in the Arctic Cryosphere , 2011, AMBIO.

[25]  J. Magnuson,et al.  Lake ice records used to detect historical and future climatic changes , 1992 .

[26]  T. Blenckner,et al.  Lake Ice Phenology , 2010 .

[27]  R. Latifovic,et al.  Analysis of climate change impacts on lake ice phenology in Canada using the historical satellite data record , 2007 .

[28]  J. Dash,et al.  A refined mapping of Arctic lakes using Landsat imagery , 2015 .

[29]  Atte Korhola,et al.  Climate-driven regime shifts in the biological communities of arctic lakes. , 2005, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[30]  Claude R. Duguay,et al.  Recent trends in Canadian lake ice cover , 2006 .

[31]  C. Duguay,et al.  Effects of Changes in Arctic Lake and River Ice , 2011, AMBIO.

[32]  Claude R. Duguay,et al.  Simulation of ice phenology on Great Slave Lake, Northwest Territories, Canada , 2002 .

[33]  Shemin Ge,et al.  Permafrost Hydrology , 2013 .

[34]  J. Thepaut,et al.  The ERA‐Interim reanalysis: configuration and performance of the data assimilation system , 2011 .

[35]  T. Blenckner,et al.  Atmospheric circulation and its impact on ice phenology in Scandinavia , 2004 .

[36]  Johanna Korhonen,et al.  Extreme events, trends, and variability in Northern Hemisphere lake-ice phenology (1855–2005) , 2012, Climatic Change.

[37]  Deliang Chen,et al.  Intensified Arctic warming under greenhouse warming by vegetation–atmosphere–sea ice interaction , 2014 .

[38]  P. Sen.  Estimates of the Regression Coefficient Based on Kendall's Tau , 1968 .

[39]  T. Blenckner,et al.  The Impact of climate change on lakes in Northern Europe , 2010 .

[40]  I. Simmonds,et al.  The central role of diminishing sea ice in recent Arctic temperature amplification , 2010, Nature.

[41]  D. Livingstone.  Large-scale climatic forcing detected in historical observations of lake ice break-up , 2000 .

[42]  P. Mattila,et al.  Case Study of Finland , 2001, Vessel-Source Pollution and Coastal State Jurisdiction.

[43]  R. Lei,et al.  Changes in ice-season characteristics of a European Arctic lake from 1964 to 2008 , 2012, Climatic Change.

[44]  David Bastviken,et al.  Methane fluxes show consistent temperature dependence across microbial to ecosystem scales , 2014, Nature.