Characterization and impact of heat exchange at the sediment-water interface in Lake Balaton

  • Sebestyén Dániel Török National Laboratory of Water Science and Water Safety, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Department of Water Engineering and Water Management, Budapest https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1503-1021
  • Péter Torma National Laboratory of Water Science and Water Safety, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Department of Water Engineering and Water Management, Budapest https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9282-6931
  • Tamás Weidinger Eötvös Loránd University, Department of Meteorology https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7500-6579
Keywords: Sediment-water interface, heat exchange, heat conduction, sediment heat flux, shallow lakes, Lake Balaton

Abstract

Water temperature is one of the most important physical parameters in lake ecosystems that directly impacts the dynamics of ecological processes. In the case of shallow lakes, such as Lake Balaton, sediment temperature is closely related to water temperature, and thus, they can significantly influence each other. For this reason, in this research, we investigated the heat exchange at the sediment-water interface of Lake Balaton based on long-term measurements. During the measurement program, we monitored water and sediment temperatures and directly measured the sediment heat flux in the upper layer of the sediment using heat flux plates with high temporal resolution. In addition, based on the data series, energy balance calculations were performed for the upper layer of the sediment and for the entire water column. By our investigation, we found that: i) the heat conduction in Lake Balaton’s sediment can be well characterized by a constant heat conduction coefficient, when the sediment is not disturbed by water movements, and a stable temperature stratification occurs at the interface; ii) the molecular diffusion-type heat exchange at the interface and in the sediment can be significantly disturbed by water movements and density-driven pore water flows; iii) the surface heat exchange can have a significant impact on the stratification of the deep water layer above the sediment, so that it can have a significant impact on hydrobiological processes too, like dissolved oxygen levels on the sediment surface. In addition, we showed that by neglecting the sediment heat flux, the average water temperature could be modeled well; however, its effect must be compensated by the heat exchanges at the air-water interface. Consequently, we will make an error primarily in the sensible and, secondly, in the evaporative heat exchange estimations.

Author Biographies

Sebestyén Dániel Török, National Laboratory of Water Science and Water Safety, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Department of Water Engineering and Water Management, Budapest

SEBESTYÉN DÁNIEL TÖRÖK was born in 1996 in Budapest. He obtained his BSc degree in 2019 at the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, where then he got MSc degree in 2021. In 2022, he started his Ph.D. studies at the Vásárhelyi Pál Doctoral School of Civil Engineering and Earth Sciences

Péter Torma, National Laboratory of Water Science and Water Safety, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Department of Water Engineering and Water Management, Budapest

PÉTER TORMA obtained an MSc degree in civil engineering in 2011 and a Ph.D. degree in 2016. He has been working at the Department of Hydraulic and Water Resources Engineering at the BME since 2011. Starting 2019, he works as an associate professor. Obtaining a Fulbright Scholarship, he was a visiting researcher at UW-Madison (USA) in the 2017/18 academic year. His field of research is physical limnology, hydrometeorology, in particular the measurement of turbulent exchange processes at the water-air interface based on the eddy-covariance principle, the heat balance of lakes, and numerical hydrodynamic modeling

Tamás Weidinger , Eötvös Loránd University, Department of Meteorology

TAMÁS WEIDINGER obtained a diploma in meteorology in 1983 and a Ph.D. degree in 1992. He has been working at the Department of Meteorology of Eötvös Loránd University since 1983, as a habilitate associate professor from 2013. His primary teaching areas are meteorology, micrometeorology, and dynamic meteorology. His main research areas are boundary layer meteorology, measuring and modeling of surface energy balance components, and various gas flows (especially ozone and ammonia). He is an editoror of the Theoretical and Applied Climatology Journal and editorial boar member of Időjárás, Quartely Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service.

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Published
2023-08-18
How to Cite
Török S. D., TormaP., & WeidingeT. (2023). Characterization and impact of heat exchange at the sediment-water interface in Lake Balaton. Hungarian Journal of Hydrology, 103(3), 33-43. https://doi.org/10.59258/hk.12337
Section
Tudományos közlemények