New study reveals remote lakes in Ecuador are not immune to climate change
From Queen’s University
A study of three remote lakes in Ecuador led by Queen’s University researchers has revealed the vulnerability of tropical high mountain lakes to global climate change – the first study of its kind to show this. The data explains how the lakes are changing due to the water warming as the result of climate change.
The results could have far-reaching consequences for Andean water resources as the lakes provide 60 per cent of the drinking water for Cuenca, the third largest city in Ecuador.
“Until recently we knew little about the effects of recent climate changes on tropical high-mountain lakes,” says Neal Michelutti (Biology), lead author and a senior research scientist at Queen’s University’s Paleoecological Environmental Assessment and Research Lab (PEARL). “We saw major changes in the algae consistent with the water warming that indicates changes in the physical structure of the water column.”
Dr. Michelutti and his research team visited three lakes in Cajas National Park. They retrieved water and core samples from the centre of each of the lakes for analysis. The lakes are accessible only by hiking trails and boats are prohibited. There is also no development within the park meaning the lakes are still in pristine condition.
“Andean societies are amongst the most vulnerable when it comes to the impact of climate change,” says Dr. Michelutti. “Warming in the Andes is occurring at a rate nearly twice the global average and it’s already impacting water resources as shown in this research. These changes are also a sign of bigger changes that are coming.”
Dr. Michelutti and his team are planning to return to the region for further research this summer and will be working with lake managers in the area to try to preserve the water.
“We have previously recorded similar types of threshold shifts in polar and temperate regions,” says research team member John Smol (Biology). “These changes are harbingers of processes that will likely affect the food chain and reverberate throughout the ecosystem. We now have data showing that lakes from the Arctic to the Andes, and everywhere in between, are rapidly changing due to our impacts on climate.”
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Also working on the research team are Alexander Wolfe (University of Alberta), Colin Cooke (Government of Alberta), William Hobbs (Washington State Department of Ecology) and Mathias Vuille (University at Albany, SUNY).
To read the study, visit the PEARL website.
Is there any place on earth that isn’t warming at twice the average?
Everywhere seems to be warming at twice the global average. Makes you wonder a bit, about how the global average for warming rates is calculated.
Another example of ‘everywhere is warming faster than everywhere else’?
Yep – the observed changes are definitely due to us. These guys wouldn’t have a clue but they’re obliged to attribute the changes to us. For shame.
The lake on the illustration photo is Skelton Lake on North Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, Canada!
Given lakes like Lake Titicaca in the Andes are 12,500 ft (around 2 miles) above sea level, how is it possible that CO2 could be causing them to warm at “twice the global average”?
A significant portion of the atmosphere, a significant part of the greenhouse blanket, is below the lake elevation.
Isn’t one of the base assumptions in the sampling of mean monthly temperature changes to determine the global annual temperature anomaly that any changes occur uniformly and simultaneously across the globe?
Would have been nice if they had compared their results with previous studies.
But it’s climate science, so as usual the spin is more important than the science.
Why do I think that this study is one that would not have received funding UNLESS the dire consequences of climate change are included?
Funny, as I am posting this I just heard on the radio about a British study that states “we were misinformed about fat in one’s diet”
Is the concentration of CO2 still 400ppm at higher altitudes?
Funny how the temperature drops the higher up you go. Funny how that happens even on high flat plains. Funny how the top of the Grand Canyon is colder than the bottom, even though the bottom receives shade from Canyon walls. Does the concentration of CO2 and water vapour drop dramatically as you ascend from the Canyon floor? Does the sun really warm the atmosphere from the surface up as claimed in the pictures presented to the public on greenhouse gasses?
PEARLS of wisdom.
I am waiting peer-reviewed research that show the optimum climate for our biosphere. The first question that would naturally flow would be where is our current climate and trend in relation to this finding.
Strangely, nobody seems interested in this vital comparison. Not so strangely, the solutions that are frequently demanded in the most urgent voice, all converge on a socialist worldview: statism, bigger government, higher taxes, less personal liberty, even fewer people. That bigger picture tells me all that I need to know about “climate science”.
“Until recently we knew little about the effects of recent climate changes on tropical high-mountain lakes,”
So in reality they little data to go on and less historic data but ‘know ‘ these is ‘ also a sign of bigger changes that are coming’ models plus speculations does not equal data nor proof . Meanwhile they are right in that if you want any more of theses trips they better make sure that their ‘results’ hit the funding honey pot of AGW.
And none of that makes any difference to the reality that despite the claims we are simply not seeing increase in temperature in line with increases in CO2 in the manner they where told .,by settled science, we would .
The actual study may be found at PLOS|One: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0115338#pone.0115338.ref028
I am not challenging the author’s findings, which may be an accurate assessment of relatively recent ecological changes in the region. The study’s basic protocols appear sound and their findings appear defensible. I do wonder, however, if they have successfully excluded potentially confounding factors.
For example, it would be interesting to compare the Cañar meteorological station data (~ 30 km away), which they utilized, to that from the Park Ranger’s weather station at Laguna Toreadora itself, if available. The climate-related conclusions of the study depend upon two factors: a presumed increase in average temperature at these lakes (~ 1.15 C) and a reduction in average windspeed (down to about 5 km/hr). Eyeballing their Figure 2 left me wondering if there was any relationship between temperature, windspeed, and SST over the period studied. That’s important because these factors are presumed to have reduced historical mixing of the lake waters and resulted in thermal stratification, thus promoting measurable changes in the predominent plankton species.
I also note that a paved road is visible in photos of Laguna Toreadora at the official National Park website: http://parque-nacional-cajas.org/weer.html. The authors state that “[t]he lakes are accessible only by hiking trails.” Perhaps the other two lakes sampled were a bit more remote from the Park’s access roads. The authors mention that shore fishing is allowed at Park lakes but there is no data on whether this human activity is on the increase or whether their lakes have any introduced species.
In any event, the first lake to experience a shift in plankton populations was Laguna Toreadora, commencing in the 1960s. [“The Discostella rise first occurs in the highest elevation lake (Laguna Toreadora, 3,920 m asl) beginning in the early 1960s, and latest in the lowest elevation site (Laguna Llaviuco, 3,140 m asl) during the late 1980s.”] Yet that early period there appears to have no correlation to higher temperatures or lower windspeeds, again based upon their Figure 2. As noted above, Laguna Toreadora appears to be one of the more accessible lakes in the Park. Perhaps there is an overlooked correlation with road paving (enhanced human access) and plankton populations?
Could someone please tell me what a Paleoecological Environmental Assessment and Research Lab really is? Is it similar to a Paleomicroagression Gender Assessment and …?
I wonder if the researchers took into account the fact that this area is where high altitude and the South Atlantic Anomaly come together in a perfect storm of solar UV variability. And they’re talking about the effect on algae.
Check. Climate change never, ever happened before 1960.
Sounds so much like the old acid rain scare that was supposedly destroying lakes world wide. Repackage and repeat.
Eugene WR Gallun
@Eric Worrall
…Given lakes like Lake Titicaca in the Andes are 12,500 ft (around 2 miles) above sea level, how is it possible that CO2 could be causing them to warm at “twice the global average”? A significant portion of the atmosphere, a significant part of the greenhouse blanket, is below the lake elevation….
Hallelujah! We have found the Tropospheric Hot-Spot…
“There is no development in the park so the lakes are pristine” and “the lakes provide 60 percent of the drinking water for Cuenca, the third largest city in Ecuador”
Hmmm…so, like, doesn’t the initial construction and continuing operation of all that gadgetry that taps into these lakes and moves water in such a volume that it provides the third largest city in Ecuador with 60 percent of its drinking water constitute a sorta, kinda “development”, that just might–just maybe, is all I’m sayin’–make lefty, hive-tool claims that these lakes are “pristine”, a cause for skeptical wonderment–you know, like, along the lines of are we possibly dealin’ here with just another one of your standard-issue, hyped, hive-bozo, agit-prop scare-boogers, beautifully timed to lend good-comrade support to the brazen-hypocrite, carbon-piggie eco-conference to be held, later this year, in Paris? You know, that sort of thing.
“They retrived water and core samples from the center of each of the lakes for analysis” and “boats are prohibited” and “We saw major changes in the algae consistent [WEASEL-WORD ALERT!!!] with the water warming”
I may be engaged in some over-active head-scratching here, but, if no boats are allowed in the park, then how did the guys takin’ the water and core samples from the lake, get to the middle of the lake to take their samples, I’m wonderin’? “Sumpin’s not right here”, my little B. S. Detector is flashin’. Wait!…I’m gettin’ another reading now on my B. S. Detector (this one’s all caps in the original): ASK ‘EM IF, IN THE COURSE OF ALL THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF THE LAKES AND MAJOR CONSTRUCTION OF ALL THAT WATER-MOVING WHAT-NOT, SOMEONE DIDN’T TRACK IN ALGAE FROM WARMER, LOWER ALTITUDES THAT WAS ADAPTABLE TO THE CONDITIONS OF THESE HIGHER ALTITUDE LAKES AND HARDIER AND MORE COMPETITIVE THAN THE LAKE’S ORIGINAL ALGAE!!!
Anybody?
In the lake photo, isn’t that a volcanic cinder cone in the middle of the lake basin?
“Andean societies are amongst the most vulnerable when it comes to the impact of climate change,” Please define vulnerability from climate change. You mean like too much snow? Too many hurricanes? Tornadoes? A growing season?
You folks have to realize that with Antarctica getting colder, there has to be a lot of places in the world “warming at twice the global average” to make up for it, so it is easy to understand now why the global average has been stagnant for 15 to 20 years, right? Just think how much worse it would have been if Antarctica wasn’t working it’s little heart out trying to balance all that warming!
It sure would be nice to see some of all that research money going into finding ways to mitigate the problem without destroying civilization instead of being wasted on useless research that solves nothing at all accept employing imaginative researchers. If the truth is that the key to saving the world was finding a way to curb carbon dioxide, it seems to me that money spent on these sort of wasted research projects would have been better spent finding that new elusive and practical energy source we need, but no, we have to keep on throwing money down a research rat hole that serves no purpose what so ever.
Hey, the initial CO2 global warming meme originated in the late 70’s/early 80’s as a method to tax the rich and transfer wealth to the poor in a good old world government, we know what’s best, way. We are now at least 35 years later and the scheme continues unabated . . . . follow the money . . . politicians, researchers, NGO’s, doom dayers/sayers, on and on. The weird thing is most of the global warming do-gooders are actually getting in the way of the commerce necessary to improve the well being of all global citizens. Read books like Abundance for a different, and optimistic, view of the future.
water quality is endangered by 1.7C +
IN ANY CASE such lakes must not be used for drinking water supply!