A 3D Hydrodynamic Lake Model: Simulation on Great Slave Lake

Large lakes are recognized as an important influence on the circulation of the atmosphere; in return the resulting meteorological forcing also affects the lake thermal structure. This interaction is complex and continues to be a critical issue considering the millions of lakes in Canada, many of which are large, and are unaccounted for in the current climatic models. This paper evaluates the predictive capability of the 3-D Estuary and Lake COmputer Model (ELCOM) using relatively high quality data collected on Great Slave Lake - one of the largest lakes of the world in Canada’s northern climatic system. This assessment is an important step in our ongoing research to develop a coupled lake-atmosphere model - a major consideration in the development and testing of our lake model. A validation run is performed with 2003 data in the Great Slave Lake. Vertical thermistor chain data is compared against model calculations and mean circulation patterns are presented. Comparison runs were made with meteorological field data and with output from a Regional Climate Model (RCM) as input to the hydrodynamic model to determine the differences in forcing data affecting simulations of surface temperature and circulation.