Projecting thermal stratification and hypolimnetic oxygen conditions by coupling paleolimnological and 1D lake model approaches

Climate change raises many questions about the future of lakes’ thermal regime and hypolimnetic oxygen conditions. One dimensional models have been widely implemented over that last years ^1–3, but most of these models are calibrated against very few years of limnological records, potentially limiting the robustness in long-term reconstructions and preventing inclusion of future scenarios. To analysis the variability and the effects of climate change on thermal regime and oxygen conditions of deep hard-water lakes, we relayed on paleolimnological records and 1D thermal lake model calibrated against time series of limnological data collected by the French Observatoire des LAcs (OLA). Continuous sediment records on four peri-alpine lakes (Lake Geneva, Lake Annecy, Lake Bourget and Lake Aiguebelette) were analysed using micro-XRF Mn-Fe ratio as proxy to infer near-annual trends of oxygen conditions for the past 300 years⁴. Past hypoxia dynamics were further inferred from varved records preserved in sediment cores⁵. General Lake Model (GLM), i.e. a 1-D modelling tool, has been constrained by climate data derived from meteorological observations and CMIP6 simulations in order to reconstruct and forcast stratification regims for the next century. Our paleolimnological results show that fluctuations in hypoxic volumes since the 1950s were great and that these fluctuations were essentially driven by climatic factors, legitimating the use of thermal model approaches for future projections of hypolimnetic oxygen conditions. In this line, thermal regime simulations based on GLM forecast an intensification in thermal stratification and an increase in volumes of water warmer than 9°C over the period 1850-2100 with potential consequence for hypolimnetic oxygen conditions and ecological habitats. Coupling model and paleolimnological approaches seem a promising way to examine the evolution of lakes in the past, and to realistically anticipate the future of lakes for the next decades.