![Sample our Geography journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5937/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Geography.jpg"})
Abstract
To determine diurnal variations in the physical and biological state of Lake Garda in early spring, high-resolution measurements were made of the vertical distribution of temperature and fluorescence in the upper 100 meters during 5–7 March 2014. In this paper, the results of these measurements are presented and a preliminary analysis that focuses on the connection between the vertical mixing coefficient and the chlorophyll-a (chl-a) concentration is given. From these first direct measurements of turbulence-related quantities in Lake Garda, it is found that mixed-layer values of
decrease, while surface chl-a concentrations increase, over the day. Variations in
can be connected to the changes in the surface wind stress, while variations in chl-a are negatively correlated with the amplitude of
. In addition, satellite observations of the surface chl-a concentration are analysed to test their use for the calibration of the fluorescence measurements and also for their potential utility in remotely determining vertical mixing in the upper layers of the lake.
Acknowledgements
The authors are very grateful to M. Bartoli and M. Pinardi (University of Parma) for laboratory analysis and to I. Cazzaniga (CNR-IREA) for support in data processing.
Meteorological data have been provided by MeteoSwiss, the Swiss Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology.
Special thanks go also to the work of the two anonymous reviewers who read our manuscript in critical detail and provided us with highly valuable input.