Abstract
The annual cycle of cold region lakes is influenced by the ice formation. Seasonal ice cover is typical in the boreal zone, while a perennial lake ice cover occurs in some high polar or high mountain lakes. The ice cover buffers the surface water temperature to the freezing point and largely decouples the water body from the atmosphere. The circulation changes from wind-driven to thermohaline (Kirillin et al. 2012b). Processes beneath the ice are slowed down, and lake memory effects extend over the winter. In the ice season, the inflow and outflow also normally decrease. The heat storage of the bottom sediments becomes an important source (Falkenmark 1973), and heat leakage is only by molecular conduction through the ice cover. Oxygen is consumed especially in the bottom waters of eutrophic lakes, and the primary production becomes light-limited in snow-covered frozen lakes.
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- 1.
Strictly speaking, stable stratification means that a water parcel returns to its original position after a vertical disturbance, while in unstable stratification a disturbed parcel goes further away.
- 2.
It is assumed here that lakes with open water surface are turbulent. For laminar conditions, the heat conductivity would be replaced by the isotropic molecular heat conductivity κ.
- 3.
Erosion of the underlying water layer by the mixed layer turbulence.
- 4.
The term thermohaline circulation comes from oceanography; ‘thermo’ refers to temperature and ‘haline’ to salinity. This circulation is driven by horizontal density gradients.
- 5.
Also known as the yellow substance.
- 6.
Introduced in 1865 by Italian astronomer Pietro Angelo Secchi (1818–1878).
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Leppäranta, M. (2015). Lake Water Body in the Ice Season. In: Freezing of Lakes and the Evolution of their Ice Cover. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29081-7_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29081-7_7
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