Canadian researchers are leading an international effort to create a major data-base on summer lake surface temperatures around the world. It’s called the Global Lake Temperature Collaboration (GLTC) project.
Sapna Sharma (PhD) is an assistant professor in the Department of Biology in the Faculty of Science at York University in Toronto. She and her students along with interationational collaboration have gathered information on almost 300 lakes and reservoirs around the world.
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The data involves recorded surface temperatures generally dating from 1985 to 2009, but in some cases the information has now been collected dating back as far as 100 years.
The database provides information such as air temperature, solar radiation and cloud cover that define climate, and geomorphometric characteristics including latitude, longitude, elevation, depth and volume, which may influence lake temperature.
The outline of the international project was published this week in Nature’s Scientific Data journal.
Professor Sharma notes that such a data bank is essential for scientists to track the scope and extent of global warming and in changing climate and determine trends.
Professor Sharma says the data gathering will now continue and very likely expand as more bodies of water are added and more collaborators come on board, adding to the 82 already contributing in 20 countries.
She notes as well, that other researchers are already hard at work on the data collected so far as the establish temperature patterns and trends.
A document outlining initial findings is expected to be published in the very near future.
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