A groundbreaking study in Nature Geoscience warns that global lakes will experience extreme and unprecedented warming by the end of this century, threatening delicate ecosystems and biodiversity.
Lakes around the globe, rich with diverse life and crucial ecological services, are on the brink of experiencing rapid and unparalleled increases in temperature. A new study published in Nature Geoscience by an international consortium of limnologists and climate modelers reveals that if current human-induced warming persists, lakes worldwide could face unprecedented surface and subsurface warming conditions by the end of this century.
The research utilized advanced lake temperature simulations generated through the Community Earth System Model, version 2 (CESM2), encompassing data from 1850 to 2100. This model, the first of its kind, integrates the dynamics of lake systems with atmospheric conditions. Scientists ran 100 simulations leveraging one of South Korea’s fastest supercomputers, “Aleph,” at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS). This ensemble modeling allowed researchers to differentiate natural climate variability from anthropogenic influences, predicting when lake temperatures will permanently exceed historical natural limits — a state termed “no-analogue conditions.”
Lead author Lei Huang, who was a postdoctoral investigator at the IBS Center for Climate Physics in Busan, South Korea and is currently an assistant professor Capital Normal University in Beijing, China, emphasized the global reach of this warming in a news release.
“On average, lakes worldwide will face no-analogue climates by the end of this century,” according to Huang. The timing, however, will vary, with tropical lakes — known for their biodiversity — being the first to experience these unprecedented conditions as global temperatures rise by approximately 2.4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The study underscores that while surface warming directly impacts species in shallow lake layers, the subsurface warming deserves attention as well.
“Our study reveals synchronous emergence of no-analogue conditions in tropical lake subsurface layers, driven by rapid downward transmission of warming signals during frequent lake mixing events,” Iestyn Woolway, a NERC independent research fellow at Bangor University in the UK and corresponding author of the study, said in the news release. In contrast, high-latitude lakes might delay these extreme climates in their deeper layers due to stratification shielding them from surface warming.
The implications of these findings are deeply concerning.
“They can lead to severe future disruptions in ecosystems,” co-author Axel Timmermann, a director of the IBS Center for Climate Physics, said in the news release. Unlike terrestrial and marine organisms, lake species often have limited ability to migrate to more favorable habitats, making it critical to understand the timing of these no-analogue conditions for effective adaptation and planning.
The urgency of this study highlights the pressing need for climate mitigation strategies and adaptation planning to protect lake ecosystems from looming climate threats.