Declining greenness in Arctic-boreal lakes

Abstract

The highest concentration of the world’s lakes are found in Arctic-boreal regions [C. Verpoorter, T. Kutser, D. A. Seekell, L. J. Tranvik, Geophys. Res. Lett. 41, 6396–6402 (2014)], and consequently are undergoing the most rapid warming [J. E. Overland et al., Arctic Report Card (2018)]. However, the ecological response of Arctic-boreal lakes to warming remains highly uncertain. Historical trends in lake color from remote sensing observations can provide insights into changing lake ecology, yet have not been examined at the pan-Arctic scale. Here, we analyze time series of 30-m Landsat growing season composites to quantify trends in lake greenness for >4 × 105 waterbodies in boreal and Arctic western North America. We find lake greenness declined overall by 15% from the first to the last decade of analysis within the 6.3 × 106-km2 study region but with significant spatial variability. Greening declines were more likely to be found in areas also undergoing increases in air temperature and precipitation. These findings support the hypothesis that warming has increased connectivity between lakes and the land surface [A. Bring et al., J. Geophys. Res. Biogeosciences 121, 621–649 (2016)], with implications for lake carbon cycling and energy budgets. Our study provides spatially explicit information linking climate to pan-Arctic lake color changes, a finding that will help target future ecological monitoring in remote yet rapidly changing regions.