Page History

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• In mid-latitude regions, lakes help to foster mild micro-climate conditions by acting as thermal inertial bodies, and they trigger locally higher precipitation rates.  This happens especially when lakes are shielded by mountainous regions, which is often the case given the geomorphological origin of many lakes (e.g. Lago Maggiore area straddling Switzerland and Italy).
• in high latitude regions, lakes tend to freeze almost every winter.  It is important to predict when that happens as freezing changes the surface albedo and thermal capacity.  This affects the surface fluxes exchanged with the atmosphere.  In winter this can make the difference between light or heavy snowfall downwind from a lake (e.g. as often seen in the vicinity of the Great Lakes).
• Currently there is no representation of snow on top of ice, the effect is:
  • to allow rather too much heat to transfer downwards or upwards.
  • to reduce the albedo from more realistic high values.
• In temperate and tropical areas, lakes are often linked with high-impact weather by contributing to the formation of convective cells.  This happens mostly at nighttime night due to moisture convergence and breeze effects (e.g. regularly occurring in Lake Victoria, one of the African Great Lakes).
• Currently there is no representation of base sediment so flux of heat to or from the underlying soil is not included.
• Extensive areas of sand or mud exposed by low tides and re-covered by incoming tides are not considered.

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