Radiative penetration dominates the thermal regime and energetics of a shallow ice-covered lake in an arid climate
Abstract. The Central Asia is characterized by cold and arid winter with very little precipitation (snow), strong solar insolation, and dry air. But little is known about the thermal regimes of ice and ice-covered lakes and their response to the distinct meteorology and climate in this region. In a typical large shallow lake, ice/snow processes and under-ice thermodynamics were observed for four winters between 2015 and 2019. Heat budgets at the ice-water interface and within the water column were investigated. Results reveal that persistent bare ice permits 20 %–35 % of incident solar radiation to transmit into the under-ice water, providing background source for under-ice energy flows and causing/maintaining high water temperature (up to 6–8 °C) and high water-to-ice heat flux (annually mean 20–45 W m−2) in mid-winter. Heat balancing indicates that the transmitted radiation and water-to-ice heat flux are the dominators and highly correlated. Both bulk water temperature and its structure respond sensibly to solar transmittance and occasional snow events. Complicated evolution of thermal structure was observed and under-ice convective mixing does not necessarily occur because of the joint governance of strong irradiance, sediment heating and salinity profile. Especially, salt exclusion of freezing changes both the bulk salinity and its structure, which plays a more important role in stability/mixing of the water column in the shallow lake.