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Department of Geosciences

Earth, Air, & Water

John Lenters

Associate Professor

Ph.D., 1997, Cornell

Climate change and variability, Hydrometeorology, Land-atmosphere interactions, Surface hydrology / ecohydrology modeling, Limnology

Contact Information

228 Bessey Hall
402-472-9044
jlenters2unl.edu

My name is John Lenters, and I am an associate professor in the School of Natural Resources and Department of Geosciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). I received my bachelor’s degree in physics and mathematics from Hope College in 1991 and my Ph.D. in atmospheric science from Cornell University in 1997. From 1996-2001 I was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Following my postdoc, I was an assistant professor in the Department of Geology and Physics at Lake Superior State University (LSSU) in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. Since 2006, I have been at UNL, where I teach Regional Climatology, Physical Limnology, and Hydroclimatology. My research focuses on the impacts of climate variability and change on water resources. I am particularly interested in understanding how climate affects the hydrology and thermodynamics of lakes and their watersheds. My research has involved a significant amount of fieldwork, as well as historical data analysis and land surface hydrologic modeling.

Our field projects have focused on understanding the effects of climate variability on lake energy and water balances in northern Wisconsin and western Nebraska. We have also received funding to initiate a similar study of thaw lakes on the Arctic Coastal Plain of northern Alaska (beginning summer 2008). These studies will help to quantify the water balance of the lakes (particularly lake evaporation) as well as their vulnerability to future climate change. The northern Wisconsin project, in particular, has been in place since 1989, and we are beginning to see the effects of climate change on lakes in this region. These effects include warmer, sunnier, and drier conditions, and this has led to higher evaporation rates. Together with recent years of below-normal precipitation, this has resulted in lower lake levels throughout the region.

I am also interested in the effects of climate variability on Great Lakes water levels, which have shown significant trends in their hydrology over the past 50-150 years. Lakes Erie and Ontario, for example, have shown significant shifts in their seasonal cycles, such that the lakes’ annual rise and fall now occur about a month earlier in the year than they did back around 1860. Lake Superior, on the other hand, has seen a weakening of its seasonal cycle since around 1948. We have been investigating the reasons for these significant changes in Great Lakes hydrology, and it turns out that the primary drivers are related to changes in climate (primarily precipitation, temperature, and runoff). More recently, Lake Superior has approached record low water levels (set back in 1926), similar to what has happened for the inland lakes of northern Wisconsin. Our continuing studies of lake evaporation and Great Lakes hydrology will help in understanding some of these recent changes and the climatic fluctuations responsible for them.

Selected Publications

  • Lenters, J.D., T.K. Kratz, and C.J. Bowser, 2005, Effects of climate variability on lake evaporation: Results from a long-term energy budget study of Sparkling Lake, northern Wisconsin (USA), J. Hydrology, 308, 168-195, doi:10.1016/j.hydrol.2004.10.028.
  • Lenters, J.D., 2004, Trends in the Lake Superior water budget since 1948: A weakening seasonal cycle, J. Great Lakes Res., 30 (Supplement 1), 20-40.
  • Lenters, J.D., 2001, Long-term trends in the seasonal cycle of Great Lakes water levels, J. Great Lakes Res., 27(3), 342-353.
  • Benson, B. J., J. D. Lenters, J. J. Magnuson, M. Stubbs, T. K. Kratz, P. J. Dillon, R. E. Hecky, and R. C. Lathrop, 2000, Regional coherence of climatic and lake thermal variables of four lake districts in the Upper Great Lakes region of North America, Freshwater Bio., 43, 517-527.
  • Lenters, J.D., M.T. Coe, and J.A. Foley, 2000, Surface water balance of the continental United States, 1963-1995: Regional evaluation of a terrestrial biosphere model and the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis, J. Geophys. Res., 105, 22,393-22,425.
  • Lenters, J.D., and K.H. Cook, 1999, Summertime precipitation variability over South America: Role of the large-scale circulation, Mon. Wea. Rev., 127, 409-431.
  • Walsh, S.E., S.J. Vavrus, J.A. Foley, V.A. Fisher, R.H. Wynne, and J.D. Lenters, 1998, Global patterns of lake ice phenology and climate: Model simulations and observations, J. Geophys Res., 103, 28,825-28,837.
  • Blodgett, T. A., J. D. Lenters, and B. L. Isacks, 1997, Constraints on the origin of paleolake expansions in the central Andes, Earth Interactions, 1, http://EarthInteractions.org/.
  • Lenters, J.D., and K.H. Cook, 1997, On the origin of the Bolivian high and related circulation features of the South American climate, J. Atmos. Sci., 54, 656-677.