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Map of Southern Ontario showing the location of lakes from which the 46 ice break up and 15 ice free season series were collected.
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An analysis is presented of 46 ice break up and 15 ice free season phenology data series obtained largely through volunteer monitoring efforts in Southern Ontario. Observations spanned the years 1853-2001. Available data included dates of ice formation and ice break up as well as the number of ice free days in a year. A high degree of temporal cohe...
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... level management, such as dam releases and draw-downs can affect ice phenology but it is believed these effects will be more common in rivers than lakes. Figure 1 shows the locations of lakes providing data used in the analysis. Lakes ranged in size from 21 to 12200 ha, with elevations from 125 to 465 m above mean sea level. ...
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... In the case of lagoons, a strong wind is necessary to cause ice floe thrusting onto land. Studies on how the scale of ice floe advances onto lake shores based on tree ice scars were performed mostly in North America, Canada and the USA, where such phenomena are common due to the high number of very large lakes (Gilbert, Glew 1986, futter 2003, duguay et al. 2006. Sheets of ice being pressured and thrusted inland had caused large damage in the forests around the Pärnu Bay (Estonia; Orviku et al. 2011). ...
girjatowicz j.P., Świątek M., łabuz T.A., 2024. The range of ice thrusts and ice piles as reflected by ice scars on trees growing on the shores of coastal lagoons: The case of the Szczecin Lagoon. Quaestiones Geographicae 43(1), Bogucki Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Poznań, pp. 93-110. 11 figs, 2 tables. abstract: We studied the phenomena associated with the thrusting of ice onto the shore of the Szczecin Lagoon based on the occurrence of tree ice scars. The measurements concerned mostly the maximum height, length and width of ice scars on trees, and the distance of these trees from the shore in the period 2017-2022. It was observed that sheets of ice advanced up to 64 m inland, and piled to form hummocks reaching up to 4.3 m above the water level. These maximum values occurred mostly on eastern shores, which is where the highest numbers of damaged and broken trees were observed. This should be associated with the strongest and most frequently occurring wind blowing from the western direction in the winter-spring period. To the contrary, the lowest number of damaged trees were observed on the western shore. This is due not only to the lower frequency of wind blowing from the east, and the associated cooling (Ta < 0°C) and ice cover stabilization, but also due to the presence of extensive reed belts. Our results enable an indirect insight into the ice phenomena dynamics, especially in areas lacking systematic ice observations. Similar conclusions may be extended for all the sheltered basins as lakes or lagoons.
... Researchers dealing with lake icing processes have paid attention to the rate of freezing depending on air temperature and the impact of internal (morphometric) characteristics. In the case of the thawing of water bodies, it was pointed out that this process depends almost exclusively on external factors, the most important among which is air temperature resulting from the amount of solar radiation reaching the ice cover [2,4,18,40,[54][55][56][57][58][59][60]. ...
... One example of elaborate analysis of conditions for the occurrence of ice phenomena are the results cited by M.N. Futter [59], who analysed data from the multiannual period 1853-2001 for more than seventy lakes located in the southern part of the Canadian province of Ontario and found that morphometric characteristics influenced ice phenology. According to M.N. ...
... According to M.N. Futter [59], smaller and shallower lakes froze earlier than larger and deeper ones. Water bodies characterised by higher water transparency (cleaner lakes), which could accumulate more heat in the summer, froze later than eutrophic ones. ...
Citation: Rzetala, M.; Topolski, M.; Solarski, M. Classification of Water Reservoirs in Terms of Ice Phenomena Using Advanced Statistical Methods-The Case of the Silesian Upland (Southern Poland). Water 2023, 15, 3925. https:// Abstract: Ice phenomena occurring in water bodies are an important indicator of natural changes (e.g., climate change) and the possibilities for economic use of water bodies (e.g., using the ice cover); hence, there is a need to adopt new advanced statistical methods for the purpose of their analysis and assessment. Material for this study was collected for three winter seasons in 39 water bodies in the Silesian Upland (southern Poland). Nine variables were used in the analysis, of which three pertained to the features of the water bodies studied (surface area, mean depth, the amount of water retained), and six pertained patterns to of ice phenomena (average near-surface water temperature during ice phenomena, average and maximum ice thickness, the number of days with ice phenomena, the number of days with ice cover, and average thickness of the snow accumulated on ice). The centroid class principal component analysis (CCPCA) method was found to be the most precise of the five methods used in the study for classifying water bodies in terms of their ice regimes. It enabled the most accurate division of the group of water bodies covered by the study in terms of their ice regimes in conjunction with their morphometric features and hydrological types. The presented method of classifying water bodies using advanced statistical methods is an original proposal, which was used for the first time in limnological research and in the analysis of ice phenomena.
... Climate-driven reductions in lake ice cover have been observed in Ontario waterbodies (Futter 2003, Sharma et al. 2019 and are predicted to prolong the annual period of phytoplankton growth and cyanobacterial blooms (Paerl et al. 2011). However, we did not find a concordant lengthening in the cyanobacterial bloom reporting period between 2006 and 2019, potentially because the period of the record is not long enough, or because we are examining the length of the reporting season, which may not reflect the period of incidence. ...
Favot EJ, Holeton C, DeSellas AM, Paterson AM. 2023. Cyanobacterial blooms in Ontario, Canada: Continued increase in reports through the 21st century. Lake Reserv Manage. XX:XXXXXX.
The Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks samples algal composition in response to public reports of suspected algal blooms, which have been tracked since 1994. In a previous analysis, Winter et al. noted a significant increase in the number of reports of confirmed algal blooms dominated by cyanobacteria from 1994 to 2009. Here, we determined that this increasing trend in the yearly number of confirmed cyanobacterial bloom reports (CCBRs) has persisted in Ontario over the intervening decade, to 2019. More than half of CCBRs were from waterbodies on the Precambrian Shield, in the Georgian Bay (5E) ecoregion, known for cottaging and water-based tourism. Data from the Ontario Lake Partner Program (LPP) was used to investigate total phosphorus (TP) concentrations in waterbodies with CCBRs. Approximately 44% of the waterbodies with a CCBR (mean TP 12.99 µg/L, n = 135) had average spring TP concentrations less than 10 µg/L, compared to 64% for LPP waterbodies with no reported or confirmed cyanobacterial blooms (mean TP 9.79 µg/L, n = 918). The most common taxon of cyanobacteria dominating bloom samples in inland waterbodies was Dolichospermum, followed by Aphanizomenon in waterbodies on the Precambrian Shield, and Microcystis in the Mixedwood Plains ecozone in southern Ontario. While an increase in public awareness cannot be ruled out in contributing to the rise in CCBRs across Ontario, the high proportion of cyanobacterial blooms occurring in oligotrophic waterbodies suggests that there may be a link to climate warming, rendering conditions more favorable for these blooms to occur.
... Such long-term air temperature and wind speed trends can lead to changes in multiple limnological conditions that can, in turn, influence diatom assemblage composition (Rühland et al. 2015). In Ontario, longer and warmer ice-free seasons (Schindler et al. 1990;Futter 2003) have resulted in longer algal growing seasons, changes in water column mixing regimes, and increases in the stability and duration of thermal stratification (King et al. 1997;Stainsby et al. 2011). In Lake Opinicon, the strong correlations between diatom assemblage trends (PCA sample scores), MAAT (Fig. 6) and MWAT (ESM Fig. S4a), as well as between trends in benthic and planktonic diatom sums and MWAT (ESM Fig. S4b,c), highlight the importance of recent accelerated warming on diatom communities in this lake. ...
Long-term changes in diatom community composition provided important insights into how multiple stressors affected shallow, macrophyte-dominated Lake Opinicon, Ontario (Canada) over the past ~ 200 years. A previous paleolimnological study of a sediment core collected in 1995 found that diatom responses to numerous large-scale cultural disturbances since the early nineteenth century were moderate in comparison to pronounced diatom responses to similar disturbances in nearby deeper lakes within the Rideau Canal system. The abundance of macrophytes in shallow and previously polymictic Lake Opinicon likely played an important role in maintaining a stable, clear-water equilibrium state. We examined diatom assemblages from a sediment core collected in 2019 to re-assess whether Lake Opinicon maintained its resistance to change over the past ~ 25 years. Despite numerous, intense early nineteenth and twentieth century cultural disturbances in Lake Opinicon’s catchment (complete deforestation, flooding with the construction of the Rideau Canal), the highest rate of diatom compositional change occurred only in the past ~ 25 years, when planktonic diatoms became prevalent for the first time in the lake’s postglacial history. This recent shift in assemblage composition is not explained by nutrient enrichment, as total phosphorus concentrations, measured since the 1970s, have declined significantly. The first appearance of zebra mussels (~ 1990s) and significant increases in Secchi depth broadly co-occurred with the diatom assemblage shift, but precipitous declines in mussel populations since 2013 and a continued increase in planktonic diatom taxa suggest the impact of this invasive species was modest. Instead, changes in diatom assemblage composition were strongly related to increasing regional air temperatures. Limnological monitoring indicated that, over the past few decades, previously polymictic Lake Opinicon has experienced increasingly longer and more stable periods of thermal stratification that are consistent with observed trends in regional warming and reduced wind speed. These water column changes, which accompanied reduced ice cover duration, would have provided favourable conditions for planktonic diatom growth. We conclude that the nature and high rate of diatom compositional change over the past ~ 25 years signifies that an ecological threshold was crossed in response to warming and changes in lake thermal structure.
... Although depletion of hypolimnetic DO during the summer months is a natural process, the development of hypoxic or anoxic conditions in some lakes is associated with elevated nutrient concentrations and the decomposition that follows enhanced algal growth (Reavie et al. 2016;Nelligan et al. 2020). Seasonal DO depletion is a product of many complex processes that may be further influenced by regional climate warming through changes to ice dynamics (Futter et al. 2003;Sharma et al. 2019) and stratification patterns (Richardson et al. 2017). For instance, even without changes to BOD, a longer or temporally shifted stratification period (Stainsby et al. 2011;Guzzo and Blanchfield 2017) may enhance DO depletion during late summer (Foley et al. 2012;Li et al. 2018). ...
... This temporal pattern in DOC is consistent with many other lakes across eastern North America as they recover from acidification (Monteith et al. 2007), as well as inferred long-term DOC trends that show the ''browning'' or ''re-browning'' of Ontario lakes relative to preindustrial values in response to the influences of multiple environmental stressors including acid deposition and climate change (Meyer-Jacob et al. 2017. The record of VRS-inferred sedimentary chlorophyll a concentration reveals an ongoing increasing trend in primary production since the 1970s, perhaps in response to the longer open-water (ice-free) period and increased duration of thermal stratification that has accompanied regional climate warming (Futter 2003;Paterson et al. 2017). Collectively, these inferences reveal that several environmental stressors, both local and regional, have impacted the lake, and despite recent water quality improvements, conditions remain quite different from those prior to European settlement. ...
... Similarly, the diatom-inferred TP profiles from Harp and Red Chalk lakes are quite stable relative to the impact and recovery profile in Peninsula Lake (Fig. 7). In contrast, records of VRS-inferred sedimentary chlorophyll a concentration from all three study lakes indicate increased primary production over the twentieth century (Fig. 7), a phenomenon likely associated with regional climate warming, longer open-water periods and increased duration of stratification (Futter 2003;Paterson et al. 2017;Smol 2019). The chlorophyll a trends, however, diverge in recent decades. ...
Peninsula Lake, Ontario, Canada, is a Precambrian Shield lake that has experienced many environmental stressors since European settlement of the watershed in the mid-1800s, including forest clearance, water-level management, sewage inputs, and land-use changes. The deterioration of water quality by the 1970s prompted mitigation efforts intended to reduce inputs of nutrients and untreated sewage to the lake. Paleolimnological analysis of a sediment core from Peninsula Lake, collected in 1995, revealed that efforts to address eutrophication had been somewhat successful, in that the lake had returned to oligotrophic status by the early 1990s. Nevertheless, there had been little to no improvement in inferred deepwater oxygen conditions. We used similar paleolimnological techniques on a core collected in 2014 to examine ecological responses to environmental stressors and remediation efforts in the intervening years, with a particular focus on changes in the amount of oxygenated habitat available to lake trout. Specifically, we inferred trends in volume-weighted hypolimnetic oxygen (VWHO), through analysis of sedimentary chironomid assemblages, to assess long-term changes in coldwater fisheries habitat. Potential drivers of VWHO were also investigated, and included diatom-inferred total phosphorus, spectrally derived trends in sedimentary chlorophyll a and its main diagenetic products, and lake-water dissolved organic carbon. The sedimentary chironomid assemblages indicate a long period of VWHO depletion, concurrent with known anthropogenic activities from the early twentieth century to the 1990s, followed by recent recovery to near pre-impact levels. The sedimentary diatom assemblages indicate nutrient enrichment throughout most of the twentieth century, which was also followed by a return to pre-impact conditions, albeit with recent indications of renewed nutrient enrichment. In contrast, strikingly different trajectories were observed in two other regional waterbodies that support lake trout, but experienced relatively little nutrient enrichment over the past ~ 150 years. Peninsula Lake appears to be recovering from nutrient enrichment and hypolimnetic oxygen depletion, but water quality improvements have nevertheless been accompanied by increased primary production, perhaps because climate warming has extended the ice-free season and stratification period. Therefore, instead of returning to pre-impact conditions, Peninsula Lake appears to be developing a novel ecological state. Any future improvements in lake trout habitat that result from nutrient abatement may be offset by rising temperatures.
... Warming trends for the number of annual open-water days were initially driven by earlier breakup dates before then being increased further by later freeze-up (see below). This is in line with other studies that capture long-term reductions in the ice season (Futter, 2003) and show that warming breakup trends are more common (Brammer et al., 2015;Jensen et al., 2007), and whilst freeze-up trends do move towards warming patterns, they are often more variable Hewitt et al., 2018). The 30-year time period analyses documented here also show that some short-term variations lead to variable spatial patterns through time. ...
... During 1931-2005 most sites display an increase in open-water days that is predominately driven by earlier breakup and later freeze-up dates in North America. This aligns well with other studies looking at a range of different sites across the region showing ice season length was driven by either earlier breakup (Brammer et al., 2015;Futter, 2003) or both earlier breakup and later freeze-up (Latifovic and Pouliot, 2007). In Europe the pattern is more mixed with a number of sites showing that earlier freeze-up trends are enough to reduce the number of open-water days for ∼ 25 % of sites, irrespective of a warming pattern in earlier breakup dates. ...
At high latitudes and altitudes one of the main controls
on hydrological and biogeochemical processes is the breakup and freeze-up of
lake and river ice. This study uses 3510 time series from across 678
Northern Hemisphere lakes and rivers to explore historical patterns in lake
and river ice phenology across five overlapping time periods (1931–1960,
1946–1975, 1961–1990, 1976–2005, and 1931–2005). These time series show that
the number of annual open-water days increased by 0.63 d per decade from
1931–2005 across the Northern Hemisphere, with trends for breakup and, to a
lesser extent, freeze-up closely correlating with regionally averaged
temperature. Breakup and freeze-up trends display a spatiotemporally complex
evolution and reveal considerable caveats with interpreting the implications
of ice phenology changes at lake and river sites that may only have breakup
or freeze-up data, rather than both. These results provide an important
contribution by showing regional variation in ice phenology trends through
time that can be hidden by longer-term trends. The overlapping 30-year time
periods also show evidence for an acceleration in warming trends through
time. Understanding the changes on both long- and short-term timescales will
be important for determining the causes of this change, the underlying
biogeochemical processes associated with it, and the wider climatological
significance as global temperatures rise.
... During our regular field activities, and as reported by a few others (Efremova & Pal'shin, 2011;Futter, 2003), we noted that spring ice-off dates within a region also appeared related to lake size. While lakes at similar elevation within relatively small geographic areas (e.g., tens of kilometers) are expected to experience similar climatic conditions, lake size and watershed topography may moderate ice-off dates in several ways. ...
We quantified the relationships between seasonal air temperatures and ice phenology for a 0.54 km² boreal lake in Northwestern Ontario, Canada using a 50‐year time series (1970–2019). Significant temporal trends in the duration of ice cover (−4.0 days decade⁻¹) occurred over the study period and both ice‐on and ice‐off dates were highly predictable from seasonal air temperatures. While temporal trends in ice‐off dates were not significant, ice‐on dates trended later by 2.2 days decade⁻¹, and both ice‐off dates and the duration of ice‐cover became increasingly variable over the study period. For three consecutive winter seasons, we also evaluated regional variations of ice‐phenology and snow and ice‐thickness from 9 to 30 boreal lakes across a lake size gradient (0.02–26 km²) using ground based and satellite observations. Regional variation of ice‐on dates (30–45 days), ice‐off dates (10–21 days), and total duration of ice‐cover (22–38 days) between lakes displayed significant nonlinear relationships to lake size across all years. Regional variation of ice‐off dates was structured according to lake size, and appeared driven by relationships between lake size, snow thickness, and ice thickness. Multiple linear regression and generalized additive modeling approaches to predict ice‐on and ice‐off dates at the regional scale by integrating the effects of air temperature and lake size had similar performance, explaining >90% of the variance of observed.
... In this approach, average dates of ice cover formation and disappearance and the duration of ice phenomena as well as the average and maximum thicknesses of ice on lakes are taken into account. These data are most often correlated with air temperature values recorded by weather stations in different parts of the world [3,4,[7][8][9][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36]. In some studies which deal with changes in the ice regime of lakes over long periods, the authors link the variability of ice phenomena to teleconnection effects [37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46]. ...
... Analyses of long series of measurements related to ice phenomena in lakes usually include ice cover formation and breakup dates, ice cover duration, and average and maximum ice thicknesses [3,4,8,9,21,23,24,26,28,32,33,37]. Researchers agree that the dates of ice phenomena disappearance are a much better indicator of contemporary climate change than the dates on which lakes freeze [3,24]. ...
... The formation of ice phenomena depends not only on air temperature, but also on the morphometric characteristics of the lake in question, primarily its average depth and the volume of water it retains [22]. On the other hand, the timing of ice phenomena disappearance depends mainly on external factors, among which the amount of solar radiation and the associated air temperature are of primary importance [12,28,30,[62][63][64][65][66][67][68]. The rate of ice loss may also be affected by the lakes' morphometric characteristics, the amount of heat accumulated in the water mass, the presence of snow on the ice, ice structure, and other factors. ...
Ice phenomena are construed as the occurrence of ice in water irrespective of its structure, form, and duration. One of the most frequently discussed research problems is the possibility of using long-term ice phenology as an indicator of changes of the thermal conditions of ambient air. The study used correlation analysis and regression models in order to determine changes in the parameters studied over time. In order to compare the ice regime of the study reservoir and other lakes in the region, discriminant function analysis, principal components analysis (PCA), and canonical redundancy analysis (RDA) were applied. During the 52 winter seasons studied (1964-2015), there were weak but still statistically significant trends concerning the increase in air temperature in the region (by 0.3 • C per decade), the reduction in the number of days with ice cover (by 8.6 days per decade) and the decline in the maximum and average thicknesses of lake ice (by 2.0 cm and 1.2 cm per decade). The low average depth and volume capacity are reflected in the rapid freezing rate of the reservoir, and its location results in a longer duration of ice cover, greater ice thickness, and later dates of its melting.
... Many previous studies have shown that lake ice phenology is strongly correlated with climate variability. Later lake ice freeze up and earlier break up have been observed in many regions [1], [2], [7], [8], [12], [15], [17], [21], [25], [26], [30], Du et al. [9] (2017), [32]. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) is an important region for climate studies. ...
Lake ice phenology is regarded as a good proxy for the past and present climates. Long time series passive microwave radiometry data are used to estimate lake ice phenology variations in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP), and a contrasting pattern of phenology change trend is found that the time series trend of lake ice freeze-up or break-up time is obviously reversed for lakes in the QTP. The reason for this contrasting trend of lake ice phenology is discussed based on factors such as salinity, water volume change, and air temperature change. Lake ice phenology data are separated based on lake salinity for the climate study: lake ice phenology of lakes with low salinity can be used as air temperature and climate change indicator, whereas lake ice phenology of lakes with high salinity and a low water volume can be used as an indicator of water volume variation under climate change. Correlation analysis of air temperature and the lake ice phenology show that air temperature is the main driving factor behind lake ice phenology variations. The lake ice phenology results suggest overall rising air temperatures during the period 1987-2017 in all regions of the QTP.
... 1950-1999 -Ice phenology influenced by extreme phases of PNA, PDO, ENSO and NP in Canada -Lake have a stronger and more coherent pattern compared to rivers North America Brammer et al. (2015) 1972-2013 -Ice season length decreased over the time period and was driven by earlier breakup North America Duguay et al. (2006) 1951-2000 -Earlier breakup trends in most lakes that were consistent with snow cover duration -Freezeup trends were more variable with later and earlier dates -Strong relationship is shown between 0 °C and breakup/freezeup dates in Canada North America Futter (2003) 1853-2001 -In Southern Ontario significant trends towards earlier breakup and an extension to the ice season length North America Ghanbari ...
At high latitudes and altitudes one of the main controls on hydrological and biogeochemical processes is the breakup and freezeup of lake and river ice. This study uses ~2600 time series from across 644 Northern Hemisphere lakes and river to explore historical patterns in lake and river ice phenology across four time periods (1931–1960, 1961–1990, 1991–2005, and 1931–2005). These time series show later breakup dates by 0.6 days per decade from 1931–2005 across North America and Europe, with trends closely correlating with temperature. Freezeup trends are more spatiotemporally complex with those in Europe negligible compared to later freezeup trends for North America. For the most recent time period (1991–2005) high magnitude trends towards later freezeup that are considerably larger than in other time periods are observed. Freezeup trends show a more limited correlation with climate and this is likely because freezeup is not guaranteed to occur simply by temperatures dropping below 0 °C. Across the Northern Hemisphere the length of the open water season is shown to have increased through time, with the magnitude at its largest in the most recent time period. These results provide an important contribution that can be used to help understand how ice phenology patterns may change in the future with an expected rise in global mean air temperatures. Observations of an acceleration in warming trends through time shows the importance of non-linear responses to climate forcings. This will be crucial because it is probable that lake and river ice phenology changes, brought about by rising air temperatures, may in turn begin to feedback into the climate system. Thus, understanding historical changes, causes, and consequences is required to fully unravel the potential implications of future ice phenology change.
