Global Lake Evaporation Loss Is Increasing Due to Climate Change

Just east of Las Vegas, on the Nevada-Arizona border, a colored white mineral ring as tall as the Statue of Liberty freaks up the rocky shoreline of Lake Mead, a Colorado River reservoir. The largest reservoir in the nation is rapidly depleting.

A vital part of the terrestrial water and energy balance is the evaporative loss from lakes around the world, both natural and man-made. The extent of these water bodies' evaporation, from its spatial distribution to its long-term trend, is not yet renowned.

Lake evaporation

(Photo : PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)

Lakes (natural and man-made), which make up about 5 million 2km of Earth's land surface, are essential elements of the world's ecological and hydrological systems, as per Nature Communication.

Lakes are an important source of water for people5,6 and they support both terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity. Lakes can lose a significant amount of water through evaporation.

Because of their substantial open water areas and the strong vapor differential pressure at the water-atmosphere interface.

Lake evaporative water loss dynamics are influenced by water area and evaporation rate, both are location-specific and responsive to the effects of a complex shifting environment.

In order to manage aquatic ecosystems and water resources more effectively, it is important to understand the spatiotemporal changes as well as drivers of evaporative water loss from lakes.

Read More: Rare Lightning Strikes the Arctic, Scientists Warn the Planet is Warming Faster

Lake loss of evaporation

The global lake evaporation volume (GLEV) dataset was developed by researchers under the direction of the associate professor in the Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Texas A&M University, Dr. Huilin Gao. As per ScienceDaily.

The first long-term monthly series for the 1.42 million unique lakes and artificial reservoirs globally are provided by combining modeling and sensing.

Long-term ordinary lake evaporation usage has increased by 3.12 cubic kilometers annually from 1985 to 2018, according to research. The trend attributions consist of a 58 percent growth in evaporation rate, a 23 percent reduction in lake ice coverage, and a 19 percent increase in lake surface area.

The study's findings highlight the significance of just using evaporation volume as the main index to evaluate climatic effects on lake systems rather than evaporation rate.

GLEV estimates that 6,715 reservoirs only hold 5% of the world's total lake surface area and 10% of its total water storage capacity. However, 16% of the evaporation volume comes from reservoirs.

This amount of reservoir evaporative loss is equal to 20% of the world's annual water usage. Evaporative water loss from reservoirs has risen by 5.4 percent annually over the past 33 years, outpacing the global trend of 2.1 percent for all lakes.

Reliable projections of the availability of water and energy resources, according to researchers, cannot be made without precisely determining the magnitude and trend of volumetric evaporation loss for each of the millions of global lakes. The wider scientific community, as well as decision-makers, can gain from this freely accessible dataset.

Researchers from Texas A&M University, the Desert Research Institute, and the U.S. To develop operational, daily reservoir evaporation tracking and forecasts for the Western United States, the Bureau of Reclamation recently began a nearly $1 million NASA Applied Science project. The group will also broaden a daily reservoir tracking project for Texas that is already in place.

Related Article: Ice Cover in Lakes Are Diminishing at Rapid Rates