Lake Ice Observations and Modeling: Case Study of Lake Mendota Winter 2015-2016

Fundamental understanding of physical hydrologic processes is one of critical components for accurately understanding the effects from climate change. The processes of lake ice formation and melt are important to lake hydrology, under-ice ecology and recreation safety and modeling lake ice duration and thickness responses to climate change is a critical challenge in the field. However, our models of lake ice are lacking both temporal and spatial measurements of lake ice for validation. A new method of observing lake ice thickness and temperature using repurposed soil water content sensors were deployed during the winter of 2015-2016. Observations were combined with eddy covariance measurements of heat fluxes and radiation above the lake surface and water column temperature measurements. The environmental observations were used to parametrize the General Lake Model and model ice thickness was compared to observational values. With decreasing ice duration and thickness predicted from climate change scenarios, having a better understanding of the physical process of lake ice formation and melt is critical for modeling lake ice.