Modeling Arctic Lakes with the LAKE2.0 Model

Lakes in the Arctic are important reservoirs of heat with much lower albedo and larger absorption of solar radiation than surrounding tundra vegetation . Under climate warming scenarios, we expect Arctic lake heat balance to shift ,, thawing underlying permafrost. Previous studies of Arctic lakes have focused on ice cover and thickness, the ice decay process, catchment hydrology, lake water balance, and eddy covariance measurements, but little work has been done in the Arctic to model lake heat balance. We applied the LAKE model to simulate water temperatures in three Arctic lakes in Northern Alaska over several years. The LAKE model is a one-dimensional finite-difference model that explicitly solves vertical profiles of water state variables on a finite-difference grid, using a k- parameterization to calculate turbulent fluxes. We used a combination of meteorological data from local and remote weather stations, as well as data derived from remote sensing, to drive the model. We validated simulated water temperatures with data of observed lake temperatures at several depths. Our validation of the LAKE model completes a necessary step toward modeling changes in Arctic lake ice regimes, lake heat balance, and thermal interactions with permafrost.