Large-scale modeled contemporary and future water temperature estimates for 10774 Midwestern U.S. Lakes

Scientific Data
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Abstract

Climate change has already influenced lake temperatures globally, but understanding future change is challenging. The response of lakes to changing climate drivers is complex due to the nature of lake-atmosphere coupling, ice cover, and stratification. To better understand the diversity of lake responses to climate change and give managers insight on individual lakes, we modelled daily water temperature profiles for 10,774 lakes in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin for contemporary (1979–2015) and future (2020–2040 and 2080–2100) time periods with climate models based on the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5, the worst-case emission scenario. In addition to lake-specific daily simulated temperatures, we derived commonly used, ecologically relevant annual metrics of thermal conditions for each lake. We include all supporting lake-specific model parameters, meteorological drivers, and archived code for the model and derived metric calculations. This unique dataset offers landscape-level insight into the impact of climate change on lakes.

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Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title Large-scale modeled contemporary and future water temperature estimates for 10774 Midwestern U.S. Lakes
Series title Scientific Data
DOI 10.1038/sdata.2017.53
Volume 4
Year Published 2017
Language English
Publisher Nature
Contributing office(s) Office of Water Information
Description Article number: 170053; 11 p.
First page 1
Last page 11
Country United States
State Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin
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