US News Story

12 October 2008 13:46 BST

Warming effecting world's largest lake

Friday, 02 May 2008 11:58

Winter ice on Lake Baikal, which is warming as a result of climate change

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Despite its vast size and unique water circulation the world's largest lake is being affected by global warming, scientists have found.

Lake Baikal, situated in a remote area of Siberia, had been thought to be one of the most resistant lakes to climate change but a new study has found "significant" warming of surface temperatures.

Changes to the lake are important to monitor as it is home to 2,500 plant and animal species, with most found nowhere else in the world.

The lake contains 20 per cent of the world's freshwater and it is large enough to hold all the water in the United States' Great Lakes.

It is the world's deepest lake as well as its oldest, at 25 million years old.

In 1996, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) declared Lake Baikal a World Heritage site because of its biological diversity.

To determine the effect of climate change, Russian and American scientists analysed studies of the lake from the past 60 years.

The results, published in the journal Global Change Biology, found a 1.21C rise in water temperature, a 300 per cent increase in chlorophyll and 335 per cent increase in an influential group of zooplankton grazers.

"Increases… have important implications for nutrient cycling and food web dynamics," the scientists warn.

The scientists say the lake now joins other large lakes, including Superior, Tanganyika and Tahoe, in showing warming trends.

But they conclude: "Temperature changes in Lake Baikal are particularly significant as a signal of long-term regional warming."
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