One of the most important physical characteristics driving lifecycle events in lakes is stratification. Already subtle variations in the timing of stratification onset and break-up (phenology) are known to have major ecological effects, mainly by determining the availability of light, nutrients, carbon and oxygen to organisms. Despite its ecological importance, historic and future global changes in stratification phenology are unknown. Here, we used a lake-climate model ensemble and long-term observational data, to investigate changes in lake stratification phenology across the Northern Hemisphere from 1901 to 2099. Under the high-greenhouse-gas-emission scenario, stratification will begin 22.0 ± 7.0 days earlier and end 11.3 ± 4.7 days later by the end of this century. It is very likely that this 33.3 ± 11.7 day prolongation in stratification will accelerate lake deoxygenation with subsequent effects on nutrient mineralization and phosphorus release from lake sediments. Further misalignment of lifecycle events, with possible irreversible changes for lake ecosystems, is also likely.

Hutchinson and Löffler's (1956) classification of lakes based on the seasonal thermal mixing regime has become a cornerstone of any analysis of lakes as elements of the earth surface. Until now however the lake classification has lacked a physically sound quantitative criterion distinguishing between two fundamental lake types: thermally stratified during a large portion of the year (mono- and dimictic) and predominantly mixed to the bottom (polymictic). Using the mechanistic balance between potential and kinetic energy we review the different formulations of the Richardson number to derive a generalized scaling for seasonal stratification in a closed lake basin. The scaling parameter is the critical mean basin depth, Hcrit, that delineates lakes that mix regularly from those that stratify seasonally based on lake water transparency, lake length, and an annual mean estimate for the Monin-Obukhov length. We validate the scaling on available data of lakes worldwide using logistic regression. The scaling criterion consistently described the mixing regime significantly better than either the conventional unbounded basin scaling or a simple depth threshold. Thus, the generalized scaling is universal for freshwater lakes and allows the seasonal mixing regime to be estimated without numerically solving the heat transport equations

Empirical evidence demonstrates that lakes and reservoirs are warming across the globe. Consequently, there is an increased need to project future changes in lake thermal structure and resulting changes in lake biogeochemistry in order to plan for the likely impacts. Previous studies of the impacts of climate change on lakes have often relied on a single model forced with limited scenario-driven projections of future climate for a relatively small number of lakes. As a result, our understanding of the effects of climate change on lakes is fragmentary, based on scattered studies using different data sources and modelling protocols, and mainly focused on individual lakes or lake regions. This has precluded identification of the main impacts of climate change on lakes at global and regional scales and has likely contributed to the lack of lake water quality considerations in policy-relevant documents, such as the Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Here, we describe a simulation protocol developed by the Lake Sector of the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP) for simulating climate change impacts on lakes using an ensemble of lake models and climate change scenarios for ISIMIP phases 2 and 3. The protocol prescribes lake simulations driven by climate forcing from gridded observations and different Earth system models under various representative greenhouse gas concentration pathways (RCPs), all consistently bias-corrected on a 0.5^∘ × 0.5^∘ global grid. In ISIMIP phase 2, 11 lake models were forced with these data to project the thermal structure of 62 well-studied lakes where data were available for calibration under historical conditions, and using uncalibrated models for 17 500 lakes defined for all global grid cells containing lakes. In ISIMIP phase 3, this approach was expanded to consider more lakes, more models, and more processes. The ISIMIP Lake Sector is the largest international effort to project future water temperature, thermal structure, and ice phenology of lakes at local and global scales and paves the way for future simulations of the impacts of climate change on water quality and biogeochemistry in lakes.

The physical response of lakes to climate warming is regionally variable and highly dependent on individual lake characteristics, making generalizations about their development difficult. To qualify the role of individual lake characteristics in their response to regionally homogeneous warming, we simulated temperature, ice cover, and mixing in four intensively studied German lakes of varying morphology and mixing regime with a one-dimensional lake model. We forced the model with an ensemble of 12 climate projections (RCP4.5) up to 2100. The lakes were projected to warm at 0.10–0.11 ^∘C decade⁻¹, which is 75 %–90 % of the projected air temperature trend. In simulations, surface temperatures increased strongly in winter and spring, but little or not at all in summer and autumn. Mean bottom temperatures were projected to increase in all lakes, with steeper trends in winter and in shallower lakes. Modelled ice thaw and summer stratification advanced by 1.5–2.2 and 1.4–1.8 days decade⁻¹ respectively, whereas autumn turnover and winter freeze timing was less sensitive. The projected summer mixed-layer depth was unaffected by warming but sensitive to changes in water transparency. By mid-century, the frequency of ice and stratification-free winters was projected to increase by about 20 %, making ice cover rare and shifting the two deeper dimictic lakes to a predominantly monomictic regime. The polymictic lake was unlikely to become dimictic by the end of the century. A sensitivity analysis predicted that decreasing transparency would dampen the effect of warming on mean temperature but amplify its effect on stratification. However, this interaction was only predicted to occur in clear lakes, and not in the study lakes at their historical transparency. Not only lake morphology, but also mixing regime determines how heat is stored and ultimately how lakes respond to climate warming. Seasonal differences in climate warming rates are thus important and require more attention.

: The effectiveness of controlling nitrogen (N) to manage lake eutrophication is debated. Long‐term, whole‐lake case studies are required to determine whether diazotrophic cyanobacteria can fix sufficient N to offset a reduction of N‐inputs. We document the recovery of shallow, productive Lake Müggelsee (Germany) over 37 yr (sampling interval 1–2 weeks) during a decrease of N and phosphorus (P) loading of 79% and 69%, respectively. Nitrogen concentrations in the lake responded immediately to loading reduction whereas P concentrations remained elevated for about 20 yr. Total nitrogen (TN) in the lake was always lower than TN in the inflow. Accordingly, estimated denitrification and N‐burial rates substantially exceeded N₂ fixation rates in the long term. Phosphorus was growth limiting in spring whereas N was clearly limiting in summer due to high sediment P‐release. TN : TP ratios, normalized to phytoplankton biovolume by regression, were 25.5 (weight) in spring and 3.3 in summer. During the study period, dissolved inorganic N (DIN) concentrations in summer decreased and the duration of low DIN concentrations increased by ca. 100 d. The biovolume of cyanobacteria and total phytoplankton decreased by 89% and 76%, respectively. The proportion of N₂‐fixing cyanobacteria during summer decreased from 36% to 14% of the total phytoplankton biovolume. The total concentration of heterocysts and estimated total N₂ fixation did not change over time. In the long term, decreasing N‐inputs effectively controlled summer cyanobacteria including N₂‐fixing taxa, which did not compensate for the N‐deficit. A P‐only control strategy would not have been as successful.