NATUKOY sa bagong pag-aaral ng NASA at ng National Science Foundation na mabilis na pinag-iinit ng climate change ang mga lawa sa iba’t ibang panig ng mundo.

Ang tuklas ay inilathala nitong Disyembre 16 sa Geophysical Research Letters at inihayag sa American Geophysical meeting sa San Francisco nang araw din na iyon.

Gumamit ang pag-aaral ng temperature data na nakuha sa tulong ng mga satellite at pagsukat mula sa 235 lawa sa mundo at sinuri ang mga pagbabago sa temperatura sa nakalipas na 25 taon.

“What we wanted to do was see how lakes were changing over the entire globe and look at what variations there were in the warming rates across the globe but also how much variation there was between lakes that were close together,” sabi ni Sam Hook, ang Science Division Manager ng Jet Propulsion Laboratory ng NASA at isa sa mga awtor ng pag-aaral.

Ayon kay Hook, umiinit ang mga lawa sa average na 0.61 degrees Fahrenheit (0.34 degrees Celsius) bawat dekada. Ang

mga pagbabago sa temperatura ay epekto ng iba’t ibang bagay, kabilang ang mas kakaunting ulap na magbibigay ng proteksiyon laban sa araw.

“One of the things that we noticed which was quite interesting was that these lakes are actually, in some cases, warming faster than the air temperatures because the air temperatures, you know, change in an instant, whereas the water temperatures, they reflect what is going on in the entire environment around them. So, it could be a reflection of there being less cloud cover, it could be a consequence of more glacial melt water coming into the lake. All these different processes taking place and they integrate them and they warm more gradually but the consequences of that warming can be very serious,” sabi ni Hook.

Ang pagtaas ng temperatura ng lawa ay maaaring makapinsala sa ecosystems sa paligid nito, at mas mahihirapan ang mga isda na mabuhay, gayundin, hindi magagamit ng mga tao ang mga yamang tubig.

“If we looked at these warming rates, a project of what would happen in the next century then what we would see is that algal blooms would go up by about 20 percent, this is the green algae that you see in the lakes, often times in the summer and some of that green algae that is added, some of it contains harmful toxins and so what it can do is, it puts restrictions on people going out on the water or using the water for drinking purposes and things like that.

So, there are real consequences to the actual lake ecosystem,” ani Hook.

Ayon kay Hook, makakatulong ang pagbawas sa polusyon para mapabagal ang pagbabago ng temperatura ng mga lawa.

(Reuters)