TheLake Tanganyika, in Africa, has registeredits biggest warming in the last hundred years, and the maximum temperature, of 26 degrees Celsius, on its surface in the last 1,500 years, according to a study carried out by geologists at Brown University, in the USA, and published in the newspaperNature Geoscience.
The samples taken by the team have brought to light 1,500 years of history of the temperature of this lake and have revealed thatthe change will affect the ecosystem, since its conservation depends on the natural transport of nutrients from the depths of the lake where the food chain starts, to the surface.
Lake Tanganyika is divided into two levels, one that occupies the surface one hundred meters, where most animal species live, including sardines, and a second, low level, where there is less oxygen or a total absence of it. In this way, for the nutrients to rise from the depths, it is necessary for the wind to stir the waters, a process that is being affected by their warming, as the report indicates.
Scientists have pointed out that during this millennium and a half, prolonged intervals of warming and cooling have occurred in the lake that are related to low and high productivity, respectively.“The hotter the water warms, the productivity is expected to decline, and it will affect the fishing industry.”, said the study’s lead author, Jessica Tierney.
In addition, this change could affect the fish that inhabit the lake – the second oldest and deepest in the world – and consequently, the fisheries, on which the regions bordering it depend, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania and Zambia – four of the poorest countries in the world according to the United Nations Human Development Index.
An estimated 10 million people live near the lake and depend on its water and fish. Specifically, geologists explain that fishing is a “crucial” component for the nutrition and well-being of the region, which annually collects 200,000 tons of fish from the lake.
