Lake Erie's thermal structure and circulation are backward
Monday, April 23, 2012 - 13:30
in Earth & Climate
A series of high-resolution measurements has shown that Lake Erie, one of the North American Great Lakes, is, in some respects, backward. In the majority of thermally stratified lakes, the thermocline, a thin subsurface layer of rapid temperature change, is deeper near the coast than near the center of the lake. Lake Erie, however, has an inverted thermocline, which is deeper offshore than at the coast. Beletsky et al. first mapped this bowl-shaped thermocline during the summer of 2005 with a large network of temperature sensors.