Lakes and Reservoirs as Sentinels, Integrators, and Regulators of Climate Change

Craig E. Williamson and Jasmine E. G. Saros, coordinating editors
Warwick F. Vincent and John P. Smol, issue editors

Lakes and reservoirs comprise a geographically distributed network of the lowest points in the surrounding landscape that make them important sentinels of climate change. Their physical, chemical, and biological responses to climate provide a variety of information-rich signals. This Special Issue focuses on the concept of lakes and reservoirs as sentinels, integrators, and regulators of climate change, as well as of the need for scaling and modeling these responses in the context of global climate change.

Sincerest thanks are due to Jon Cole and Everett Fee for early discussions in the developmental stages of the Chapman Conference that led to this Special Issue, and Everett Fee and Lucille Doucette for their excellent and responsive help in production of the Special Issue. Publication was supported by NSF DEB IRCEB #0210972 to Craig Williamson, and the work of the guest editors was supported by the Canada Research Chair program. The Chapman Conference was supported by the Zoology Department, Dean of Arts and Sciences, and Office for Advancement of Research and Scholarship at Miami University, the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine, the University of California, Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center, the Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network, and Hydro Quebec. Helen Schneider-Lemay and Jessie Hersher were very helpful in the early stages of the planning of the Chapman Conference, and Melissa Ficek, Shermonta Grant, Brenda Weaver, Melissa Markowitz, and Cynthia Wilcox from the American Geophysical Union Chapman Conference Office as well as Geoff Schladow assisted with the later stages of planning and running the conference. We also thank Erin Overholt for her able assistance with the conference and Special Issue. And, of course, we thank all the reviewers and authors for their thoughtful work on the papers in this Special Issue.