AL:PE - Acidification of Mountain Lakes: Palaeolimnology and Ecology. Part 2 - Remote Mountain Lakes as Indicators of Air Pollution and Climate Change

摘要

AL:PE is a multi-disciplinary and multi-national project coordinated by research groups in London and Oslo. It is funded by the European Commission, The project is described in this report. The project is the first comprehensive study of remote mountain lakes on a European scale. It is concerned with ecosystems in the arctic and alpine regions of Europe that are threatened by acid deposition, toxic air pollutants and climatic change despite their remoteness. The studies are important not only for ecosystems of the lakes, for which they were designed, but for the arctic and alpine regions in general, since the lakes with their sediment records act as environmental sensors. The AL:PE results illustrate two overarching issues: (1) the importance of these remote and sensitive ecosystems as sensors of long-range transported pollutants and as providers of early warning signals for more widespread environmental change; and (2) the importance and urgency of understanding the present and future impact of pollutants, both singly and in combination, on aquatic ecosystems. Currently, acid deposition is considered the most potent threat. In the context of global warming, however, it is a formidable scientific challenge to disentangle the interactions between the effects of changing deposition patterns of acids, nutrients, trace metals and trace organics. The AL:PE programme has begun to address this challenge and its successor EU project, MOLAR, is designed to tackle the issues more more specifically by focusing on in-depth studies of key sites. 97 refs., 192 figs., 100 tabs.