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STRATIFICATION VARIABILITY IN THREE MORPHOMETRICALLY DIFFERENT LAKES UNDER IDENTICAL METEOROLOGICAL FORCING 1
Author(s) -
Ford Dennis E.,
Stefan H.
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
jawra journal of the american water resources association
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.957
H-Index - 105
eISSN - 1752-1688
pISSN - 1093-474X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1752-1688.1980.tb02385.x
Subject(s) - stratification (seeds) , environmental science , thermal stratification , dominance (genetics) , climatology , forcing (mathematics) , temperate climate , diel vertical migration , atmospheric sciences , geology , oceanography , ecology , thermocline , seed dormancy , biochemistry , botany , germination , chemistry , dormancy , gene , biology
Synoptic water temperature measurements were taken in three temperate lakes located within 25 km of one another to study the effects of morphometry (and changes in weather) on seasonal and short‐term thermal stratification characteristics. Two of the lakes had nearly the same surface areas and two had nearly identical mean depths; all were exposed to identical weather conditions. The dominance of weather over morphometry on the water surface temperature response was illustrated by the synoptic measurements in two different years. Stratification structure was also found to be dominated by weather for sufficiently deep lakes. Surface area effects were most subtle but explainable as sheltering effects. The onset of stratification was not, as traditionally described, a simple, gradual response of a lake to the annual solar radiation cycle. Rather it depends on a series of alternating heating, cooling, and mixing cycles similar to annual and diel cycles but with a period of approximately five days. These were in direct response to the passage of major weather systems and displayed no apparent time lag. No comparable synoptic water temperature data set could be found in the literature.