Global heat uptake by inland waters

Vanderkelen, I. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8673-1933, Lipzig, N. P. M., Lawrence, D. M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2968-3023, Droppers, B., Golub, M., Gosling, S. N. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5973-6862, Janssen, A. B. G., Marcé, R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7416-4652, Schmied, H. M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5330-9923, Perroud, M., Pierson, D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6230-0146, Pokhrel, Y., Satoh, Y., Schewe, J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9455-4159, Seneviratne, S. I., Stepanenko, V. M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3033-6712, Tan, Z. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5958-2584, Woolway, R. I. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0498-7968 and Thiery, W. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5183-6145 (2020) Global heat uptake by inland waters. Geophysical Research Letters, 47 (12). e2020GL087867. ISSN 0094-8276 doi: 10.1029/2020GL087867

Abstract/Summary

Heat uptake is a key variable for understanding the Earth system response to greenhouse gas forcing. Despite the importance of this heat budget, heat uptake by inland waters has so far not been quantified. Here we use a unique combination of global-scale lake models, global hydrological models and Earth system models to quantify global heat uptake by natural lakes, reservoirs, and rivers. The total net heat uptake by inland waters amounts to 2.6 ± 3.2 ×1020 J over the period 1900–2020, corresponding to 3.6% of the energy stored on land. The overall uptake is dominated by natural lakes (111.7%), followed by reservoir warming (2.3%). Rivers contribute negatively (-14%) due to a decreasing water volume. The thermal energy of water stored in artificial reservoirs exceeds inland water heat uptake by a factor ∼10.4. This first quantification underlines that the heat uptake by inland waters is relatively small, but non-negligible.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/100726
Identification Number/DOI	10.1029/2020GL087867
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
Publisher	AGU
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