Climate Fact: Lake Baikal Trends
The world’s largest and oldest lake, Russia’s Lake Baikal, provides habitat for over 2,500 species, most of which are found nowhere else on Earth. Baikal has changed rapidly over the last 60 years. These changes include a two degree Fahrenheit rise in the temperature of the water, a corresponding 300 percent increase in chlorophyll concentration in the lake, and a 335 percent increase in the zooplankton populations that feed on chlorophyll-producing algae. Additionally, the average number of days per year when ice covers Baikal has fallen by 18 over the past 100 years. This ice provides habitat for species of diatom, which sink to the lake bottom as the ice retreats, where their bodies provide critical nutrients for species living in the depths. Few places on Earth have experienced such changes in species composition and seasonal timing at the rate that Lake Baikal has.
Seasons: Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall
Sources: Hampton, SE et al. “Sixty years of environmental change in the world’s largest freshwater lake- lake Baikal, Siberia.” Global Change Biology: Accepted May 2008 and Gardner, Timothy. “Lake warming faster than air.” news.com.au 1 May 2008. Accessed Online 2 May 2008
