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Title: Lake Baikal as possible sentinel of the Climate Change

Author(s): SILOW Eugene

Annotation: Now it is relatively well known – what changes must have place in the lakes if the Global Change is real. There must be increase of surface temperature, more expressed and longer direct stratification, shorter period of ice cover and other hydrological changes. Among biological changes there must be decrease of share of large cell alga, increase of small cell phytoplankton, changes in zooplankton community etc. These changes now are observed in many lakes around the world. At the same time we can observe directly opposite changes of parameters, causing doubts in paradigm shift in limnology. The lakes are supposed to be the sentinels of the Climate Change. They have many advances in comparison with other indicators. Ecological processes in lakes are more closely related with temperature, even the structure of water body, the seasonal changes, the freezing of surface etc. depend on temperature. The lake Baikal is the largest, deepest, one of the oldest lakes of Earth. Its systems must be very inert, as there are enormous efforts necessary to cause shifts in the lake Baikal ecosystem. Nevertheless we observe the changes in air temperature, changes of the temperature of the surface and deep layers of water, changes of the period of ice cover. Simultaneously we observe some biological changes – decrease of share of large spring alga, increase of biomass of summer phytoplankton, changes in zooplankton structure, appearance of invasive species. Are this changes (including climate) connected with Global Change, or with local disturbances (e.g. creation of system of enormously large reservoirs near Baikal), or with some extra long-term natural cycles – this is the problem to be solved.

Bibliographical description: Silow E. Lake Baikal as possible sentinel of the Climate Change / E. Silow // 13th World Lake Conference. 2009. http://lake.baikal.ru/ru/library/publication.html?action=show&id=637

Publication's type: статья

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