Climate change impacts on freshwater ecosystems
By: edited by Martin Kernan, Rick Battarbee and Brian Moss
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Hoboken, NJ
Language: eng
Number of pages: 314
ISBN-13: 9781405179133
Description: "This text examines the impact of climate change on freshwater ecosystems, past, present and future. It especially considers the interactions between climate change and other drivers of change including hydromorphological modification, nutrient loading, acid deposition and contamination by toxic substances using evidence from palaeolimnology, time-series analysis, space-for-time substitution, laboratory and field experiments and process modelling. The book evaluates these processes in relation to extreme events, seasonal changes in ecosystems, trends over decadal-scale time periods, mitigation strategies and ecosystem recovery.The book is also concerned with how aspects of hydrophysical, hydrochemical and ecological change can be used as early indicators of climate change in aquatic ecosystems and it addresses the implications of future climate change for freshwater ecosystem management at the catchment scale.This is an ideal book for the scientific research community, but is also accessible to Masters and senior undergraduate students"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: 1. Introduction.Brian Moss.University of Liverpool.This chapter will summarise current climate change scenarios following the IPCC report. The greater focus on what will happen in Europe, using the Greenland to Greece gradient. The state of freshwater ecosystems in Europe (physico-chemical conditions, patterns of biodiversity, water usage, ecosystem use and goods and services) will be highlighted. Emphasis will be placed on interconnectivity and multiple chains of consequence. The chapter will summarise existing evidence of change in freshwaters: rainfall patterns, glacier retreat, river discharge, growth season, period of ice cover.The available tools for identifying change, calculating effects and quantifying uncertainties will be introduced. These include: documenting the past (long time scale, limited record; shorter time scales, better data but lower horizon of perception); experiments (whole system, problems of representation, replication and control; sub-system, problems of completeness of system but greater control and replication); comparative studies along climate gradients (space for time), need for large numbers of data to distinguish climate from other trends, problems inherent in correlation; modelling. This book essentially takes the emerging evidence from the physical to the sociological and applies expert judgement to it to assess the interplay between freshwaters and human societies...2. Aquatic ecosystem variability and climate change at different timescales.Rick Battarbee.Environmental Change Research Centre, University College London.This chapter examines how climate change has influenced stream and lake ecosystems in the past. It uses palaeolimnological records to provide evidence for decadal-scale patterns of variability and long-term observational records from key sites to identify climate-ecosystem relationships on shorter, time-scales. Special attention is given to the seasonal pattern of response of aquatic ecosystems to changes in the climate system and to the changing frequency and intensity of climate events. The chapter will focus on the Holocene context (long-term natural variability), recent trends (evidence from remote lakes), changing seasonality and the impact of extreme, episodic climate events..3. Direct impacts of climate change on Freshwater Ecosystems.Ulrike Nickus.University of Innsbruck, Institute of Meteorology and Geophysics, Institute of Zoology and Limnology.This chapter will review responses of freshwater systems to recent changes in climate by evaluating selected long-term data series, and it will discuss the possible impact of predicted future climate on freshwater systems simulated by manipulation experiments. Using case studies the chapter will show (i) the degree to which large-scale climate forcing produces a coherent response in water temperature and ice dynamics, (ii) how enhanced weathering and release of minerals from the catchment in response to rising air temperature are reflected in the increasing ion content of high altitude lakes during the past decades, (iii) that increasing surface water concentrations of dissolved organic carbon across much of Europe appear to reflect changes in climate and acid atmospheric deposition, (iv) that the predicted future increase in mean geostrophic winds particularly in the north of Europe is expected to increase the input