Current Climatic Conditions of Lake
Regions in Poland and Impacts on Their
Functioning
Andrzej Górniak
Contents
1 Introduction ................................................................................... 2
2 Material and Methods ......................................................................... 3
3 The Climate of Poland and Its Changes ...................................................... 4
3.1 Climatic Conditions of Poland ......................................................... 4
3.2 Climate of the Polish Lakelands ....................................................... 6
4 Polish Lakes Under Climatic Changes ....................................................... 11
4.1 Lake Water Storage Changes ........................................................... 11
4.2 Lake Water Temperature Regime and Recent Tendency .............................. 15
4.3 Predicted Climate Change Impact on Lake Functioning .............................. 20
5 Conclusions ................................................................................... 23
References ......................................................................................... 23
Abstract The condensed characteristics of the climate of Poland are presented with
particular emphasis on the areas of lake districts. More detailed studies were
provided on 19 lakes with daily hydrological and thermic observations in the
calendar years 2000–2016. Climate warming is clearly observed in observational
temperature data, with increases of 0.2–0.4
C per decade. Slightly lower air tem-
peratures and a higher annual sum of precipitation in relationship to neighboring
regions are specific for the Polish Lakelands. Mean annual air temperature in the
eastern part is 1.5
C lower than in the western regions. Much greater variation of
precipitation and climatic water balance was noted, where the Wielkopolskie and
Lubuskie Lake Districts have a permanent water deficit that is not observed in the
rest of the Lakelands. Polish postglacial lakes are characterized by generally small
fluctuations in water level, whereas variations in artificially regulated lakes are
higher than in lakes with a natural regime, as well as a higher frequency of
decreasing water level trends. Only a few lakes have a statistically significant
increase of lake water temperature, mostly in northeastern Poland. A simulation
indicated that in year 2050 the annual lake water temperature will be 1.1–1.9
C
A. Górniak (*)
Department of Hydrobiology, Institute of Biology, University of Białystok, Białystok, Poland
e-mail: hydra@uwb.edu.pl
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
E. Korzeniewska, M. Harnisz (eds.), Polish River Basins and Lakes – Part I,
The Handbook of Environmental Chemistry 86,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12123-5_1
1
hydra@uwb.edu.pl