Global lake responses to climate change

Climate change is one of the most severe threats to global lake ecosystems. Lake surface conditions, such as ice cover, surface temperature, evaporation and water level, respond dramatically to this threat, as observed in recent decades. In this Review, we discuss physical lake variables and their responses to climate change. Decreases in winter ice cover and increases in lake surface temperature modify lake mixing regimes and accelerate lake evaporation. Where not balanced by increased mean precipitation or inflow, higher evaporation rates will favour a decrease in lake level and surface water extent. Together with increases in extreme-precipitation events, these lake responses will impact lake ecosystems, changing water quantity and quality, food provisioning, recreational opportunities and transportation. Future research opportunities, including enhanced observation of lake variables from space (particularly for small water bodies), improved in situ lake monitoring and the development of advanced modelling techniques to predict lake processes, will improve our global understanding of lake responses to a changing climate

Contrasting diel hysteresis between soil autotrophic and heterotrophic respiration in a desert ecosystem under different rainfall scenarios

Diel hysteresis occurs often between soil CO(2) efflux (R(S)) and temperature, yet, little is known if diel hysteresis occurs in the two components of R(S), i.e., autotrophic respiration (R(A)) and heterotrophic respiration (R(H)), and how diel hysteresis will respond to future rainfall change. We conducted a field experiment in a desert ecosystem in northern China simulating five different scenarios of future rain regimes. Diel variations of soil CO(2) efflux and soil temperature were measured on Day 6 and Day 16 following the rain addition treatments each month during the growing season. We found contrasting responses in the diel hysteresis of R(A) and R(H) to soil temperature, with a clockwise hysteresis loop for R(H) but a counter-clockwise hysteresis loop for R(A). Rain addition significantly increased the magnitude of diel hysteresis for both R(H) and R(A) on Day 6, but had no influence on either on Day 16 when soil moisture was much lower. These findings underline the different roles of biological (i.e. plant and microbial activities) and physical-chemical (e.g. heat transport and inorganic CO(2) exchange) processes in regulating the diel hysteresis of R(A) and R(H), which should be considered when estimating soil CO(2) efflux in desert regions under future rainfall regime