Climate warming of Wisconsin lakes can be either amplified or suppressed by trends in water clarity

While climate change is rapidly warming lakes and reservoirs, warming rates can be highly variable among systems because lake characteristics can modulate atmospheric forcing. While it is known that water clarity changes can alter lake water temperatures, it is unknown if frequently observed water clarity trends are sufficient to meaningfully impact the thermal trajectories of diverse lake populations. Using process-based modeling and empirical observations, this study demonstrates that water clarity changes of about 1% per year amplifies or suppresses warming at rates comparable to climate-induced warming. These results demonstrate that trends in water clarity, which are occurring in many lakes, may be as important as rising air temperatures in determining how waterbodies respond to climate change. These data support the following publication: Jordan S. Read, Luke A. Winslow, Gretchen J.A. Hansen, Jamon Van Den Hoek, Paul C. Hanson, Louise C. Bruce, 2014, Simulating 2368 temperate lakes reveals weak coherence in stratification phenology: Ecological Modeling, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2014.07.029.