The Lake Baikal Level Regime: Retrospection and Current Status
The Lake Baikal history and the main problems of its regulation have been discussed. Analysis of the lake level alterations over the whole period of instrumental observations (1900–2016) has been carried out. A protracted low-water period was observed in the Baikal basin fromthe middle 90s of XX century. It was the longest for the whole period of instrumental observations. The extreme low-water situation in the lake basin in 2014–2015 has been studied. A statistically significant trend of the temperature increase and precipitations decrease has been stated. Atmospheric precipitations affect the river runoff many-year fluctuations more than other water balance elements. It was stated that the Lake Baikal level directly depends on the Selenga River water content. Minimal runoff during the low-water periods demonstrates a tendency to decrease, just like the annual runoff. It was a perpetual series of the reduced runoff that caused the minimal runoff negative trend, as a result of which the water resources inflow to the Lake Baikal was recordbreaking minimal over the previous years. The Selenga River basin runoff parameters spatial-temporal reconstruction was performed according the hydrometric posts and dendro/climatic stations data. The water runoff reconstruction statistic models show a good agreement between the Archangel fir ring amount of growth and annual water flow. The historic chronicles and moisture regimes have been chronologically compared on the basis of the obtained water regime reconstructions. The historic chronicles analysis is an indirect verification of the obtained time series related to the water flows in the Selenga River basin.