1 - Lemeshko N.A., 2 - Eitzinger J., 2 - Kubu G.

1 - St. Petersburg State University, University Nab. 7/9, St. Petersburg, 46, Russia, 199034. Tel: +7 (921)-9772781 E-mail: n.lemeshko@spbu.ru

2 - University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BKOU), Institute of Meteorology, Gregor-Mendel-Straße 33, 1180 Vienna, Austria. Tel.: +43 (1)-47654 81423 E-mail: josef.eitzinger@boku.ac.at; gerhard.kubu@boku.ac.at

Climate change is expected to affect lakes which are an important freshwater resource. Modern environmental and climate change, caused by natural and man-made factors, drives to important changes in hydrological regime оf lakes. However the response of individual lakes to these changes depends on the magnitude and nature of regional climatic fluctuations. The lakes’ level is a reliable moisture integrator, reflecting water resource within a vast territory. Lakes also impact on hydrometeorological characteristics of coastal areas’, whose changes should have both positive and negative impacts of different scale on ecological state and humanity.

A steady-state hydrological model has been developed for evaluation of changes in water balance of lakes with the progress of global warming. The paleoclimatic reconstruction for global warming on 2ºС has been used as empirical scenario. This scale of climate change corresponds to the warm epoch in the geological past, considered as analog of future climatic regime: the Last Interglacial-Eem (125 KA B.P.). The combined assessment of regional peculiarities for the period of hydrometric observations and the paleoclimatic scenario make it possible to reduce existing uncertainty in the forecast of the hydrological regime of lakes.

Keywords: climate change, water balance, Lake Onega, Lake Ilmen, paleoclimatic scenario