Скачать или смотреть Olympic National Park Perspectives: Changing Winter Conditions on Olympic Mountain Lakes

Steven Fradkin, Olympic National Park (ONP) Coastal Ecologist and Limnologist, and Bill Baccus, ONP Physical Scientist, present their talk "The Influence of Changing Winter Conditions on Olympic Mountain Lakes."

Mountain lakes are ecologically important and charismatic features of the high country of the national parks of the North Coast and Cascades Network (Olympic, Mount Rainier, North Cascades). These lakes are ice-free approximately 5 months of the year. The remainder of the year they are locked under a thick blanket of ice and snow that limits the amount of light, atmospheric gas exchange, nutrient dynamics, and the pace of biological activity. As the global climate changes due to warming, the duration of winter ice cover is expected to decrease with potentially profound changes to these fragile ecosystems. We present a long-term dataset (up to 16 years) of ice duration from 21 NCCN lakes. This period of record illustrates changes in ice duration and includes examples of conditions expected in a near-future warmed world.

Recorded on March 11, 2025, at Port Angeles Main Library as part of the Olympic National Park Perspectives Speaker Series.