Long-term Dissolved Oxygen

This project focuses on using long-term dissolved oxygen profiles to identify trends in dissolved oxygen (DO) at different depths (e.g., epilimnion vs. hypolimnion) among lakes with different watershed features and trophic status. Because DO responds in a variety of ways to temperature, and because lake temperatures are changing, it seems likely that DO in lakes should be responding to these changes. We have three focal questions: 1) To what extent is DO changing in lakes globally? 2) Do these trends vary with lake strata (i.e., epilimnion vs hypolimnion)? Can observed long-term trends in DO be explained by the direct temperature dependence of DO solubility alone? As of late 2018, we have collected data for roughly 400 globally distributed lakes and are in the final stages of analysis. This project is therefore now in the “red” stage. We have begun drafting some text for a manuscript and have set a target date of April 1, 2019 for submission of a manuscript. Though we are in this late stage, there may still be potential to contribute data, especially for underrepresented regions of the world such as Asia and Africa. If interested in contributing to this project, please contact Steve Jane at janes@rpi.edu or one of the other project leaders for more information.