Abstract
Inland standing waters are particularly vulnerable to increasing water temperature. Here, using a high-resolution numerical model, we find that the velocity of climate change in the surface of inland standing waters globally was 3.5 ± 2.3 km per decade from 1861 to 2005, which is similar to, or lower than, rates of active dispersal of some motile species. However, from 2006 to 2099, the velocity of climate change will increase to 8.7 ± 5.5 km per decade under a low-emission pathway such as Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 2.6 or 57.0 ± 17.0 km per decade under a high-emission pathway such as RCP 8.5, meaning that the thermal habitat in inland standing waters will move faster than the ability of some species to disperse to cooler areas. The fragmented distribution of standing waters in a landscape will restrict redistribution, even for species with high dispersal ability, so that the negative consequences of rapid warming for freshwater species are likely to be much greater than in terrestrial and marine realms.
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Data availability
ERA5 data used in this study are available from https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/dataset/reanalysis-era5-single-levels?tab=overview. The FLake model source code is available to download from http://www.flake.igb-berlin.de/. Climate model projections are available at https://www.isimip.org/protocol/#isimip2b.
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Acknowledgements
R.I.W. received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 791812. S.C.M. was funded by the NERC Hydroscape Project (NE/N00597X/1).
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Both authors developed the concept of the study. R.I.W. performed the modelling. S.C.M. and R.I.W. led the drafting of the manuscript, and both approved the final version of the manuscript.
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Extended data
Extended Data Fig. 1 Validation of simulated lake surface temperatures.
Comparison of simulated and satellite-derived surface water temperatures for 196 lakes (2007-2018) from the ESA CCI Lakes dataset. Shown are comparisons of the average open-water temperatures for the lake-centre pixels.
Extended Data Fig. 2 The velocity of climate change in European standing waters.
Shown for standing waters in Europe are a, the surface water temperature trend, b, the two-dimensional spatial gradient of surface water temperature change, and c, the velocity of climate change during the 1979 to 2018 period. White regions represent those where standing waters are absent within the global database.
Extended Data Fig. 3 Global relationship between the spatial temperature gradient and elevation.
Shown is a comparison of a, the two-dimensional spatial gradient of surface water temperature change, and b, elevation. White regions represent those where standing waters are absent within the global database.
Extended Data Fig. 4 Comparison of the velocity of climate change and the spatial elevation gradient.
Shown is the relationship between the velocity of climate change in the surface of inland surface waters and the two-dimensional spatial gradient of elevation change. Specifically, we show that climate change velocities are greater at sites with low elevation gradients. Thus, steep sites which show rapid change in elevation, experience lower climate velocities. Each box represents the interquartile range, the horizontal line is the median, and the whiskers are 1.5 times the interquartile range.
Extended Data Fig. 5 Historic and future projections of global surface air temperature.
Temporal change in annual surface air temperature anomalies (relative to 1951-1980) from 1861-2099 showing the historic period (1861-2005), with contemporary to future climate projections (2006-2099) under three representative greenhouse gas concentration scenarios (RCPs 2.6, 6.0, 8.5). The thick lines show the average of four global climate models (MIROC5, IPSL-CM5A-LR, GFDL-ESM2M, HadGEM2-ES), and the shaded regions represent the standard deviation.
Extended Data Fig. 6 Global variations in the velocity of climate change from 2006-2099 relative to 1861-2005.
Shown are the differences in the simulated velocity of climate change between the historic (1861-2005) and the contemporary to future (2006-2099) period (that is, future minus historic) under RCP 8.5. Results are shown for the lake model forced by four global climate models (a, MIROC5; b, IPSL-CM5A-LR; c, GFDL-ESM2M; d, HadGEM2-ES). White regions represent those where the difference in climate velocities are negligible.
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Woolway, R.I., Maberly, S.C. Climate velocity in inland standing waters. Nat. Clim. Chang. 10, 1124–1129 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0889-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0889-7
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