Environmental Sciences Research Institute

The projected impact of climate change on a large shallow lake over the next 50 years


Fig. 1

Based on growing evidence, there is high confidence that increased warming of lakes and rivers in many regions, with effects on thermal structure and water quality is occurring (Figure 1).

This project intends to use data from established climate change models (for example; temperature, precipitation, wind, cloud cover, extreme weather events, and river flow rates) to investigate the possible effects of climate change on the physical, chemical, biological and economic status of Lough Neagh over the next 50 years.

Figure 1. Observed changes in (a) global average surface temperature; (b) global average sea level from tide gauge (blue) and satellite (red) data; and (c) Northern Hemisphere snow cover for March-April. All differences are relative to corresponding averages for the period 1961-1990 (taken from IPCC 2007).