Water depth: maximum water depth (m), Area: lake area at the surface
(km2), DT: daytime temperature (oC),
NT: nighttime temperature (oC), DTD: diurnal
temperature difference (oC), Latitude (degree), Water
storage (km3)
3.4.3. Ice cover trend and salinity
On a continental scale, lakes at high latitudes and high altitudes tend
to have low LWST and short ice-free duration (Figure 6 and Table 3).
Lakes Niagame and Kungasalakh, located near the Arctic Circle, exhibited
much shorter ice-free time (average: 56 and 64 days, respectively)
compared to Lake Eloygytgyn and Yambuto in eastern Siberia (128 days and
136 days, respectively). Since these lakes are found at similar
elevations and are located in the same climatic zone, water chemistry
could be a reason for the difference in ice-free duration. It is well
known that increased salinity of lake waters can increase ice formation
temperature, thus an extension in ice-free duration should be expected
for lakes with high salinity (Wang & Dou, 1998). The merit of that
contention cannot be determined by the data presented in this study, but
it does underscore the need to further investigate how salinity could
affect the dynamics of ice formation, the duration of the ice-free
period in lakes, and ultimately the response of water temperature in
these water bodies to a warming global climate.
Table 3: The top ten lakes (from a set of 1,098 lakes) with the
lowest water surface temperature across Eurasia