Tourists come from all over the world to enjoy the incredible beauty of the deepest lake in the world. As a rule, they choose summer time to visit, so few people know how amazing a frozen Baikal looks. If it were not for the harsh climate of these places, winter tours would have enjoyed the same success as summer ones.
Great lake
According to scientists, Baikal is the oldest lake on the planet, formed 20-30 million years ago due to tectonic shifts of the earth's crust. This zone is still seismically unstable, therefore, not only are there numerous thermal sources, but frozen Baikal itself can shock by the appearance of fire from under the ice, as evidenced by eyewitnesses.
Located in Eastern Siberia at an altitude of 455 m above sea level, the lake has a coastline of more than 1800 km with a length of 636 km and in its shape resembles a month.
The greatest depth of the reservoir is approximately 1640 meters, which allows it to occupy an honorable first place in the Guinness Book of Records, but the uniqueness of Lake Baikal is not so much in its depth as in its location.
Being a natural reservoir of fresh water (20% of world reserves), the lake is located in an area where nature itself takes care of maintaining its purity. Today, almost the entire coastline is a reserve, and since 1996, Baikal has been included in the UNESCO Heritage List, and the first thing people feel when approaching it is the smell of pine needles, since its entire coast is covered with forests.
Since ancient times, mankind has known about the healing antibacterial properties of conifers. The fact that they surround the lake is not an accident. It is conifers that soften the harsh winter, making it 10 ° C warmer than in the same Irkutsk, located only 70 km from the reservoir, which does not interfere, however, to ice the ice from October to the end of April. Those who saw a photo of a freezing Baikal note the incredible transparency of ice, which you will not see in other places of the planet.
Climate
Eastern Siberia is famous for its cold sharply continental climate, but the fact that Baikal is surrounded by mountains and the coast is covered with coniferous forests has created its own microclimate in this area. Its peculiarity is that winter is milder and summer, on the contrary, is cooler than in other parts of the region. The huge mass of water itself forms the local climate, the temperature regime of which varies in the open part of the lake from -21 ° C in winter to +15 ° C in summer, and from -25 ° C to + 17 ° C in the coastal part.
Paradoxical as it may seem, Baikal also differs in the number of sunny days per year. For example, here it is clear for 2350 hours, while on the Riga coast - only 1839 hours. If we consider the weather geographically, the sunniest is the island of Olkhon (64 days against 49 in Baikal as a whole). By the way, the least precipitation falls on it.
On average, 125 cloudy days are accumulated on a lake of cloudy days per year, while on the same Olkhon there are only 75 of them for the same period. In these places, there are rarely long rains, which pleases tourists, as many of them tend to get here to see the famous mirages.
If they knew how Lake Baikal freezes (photo below), they would have exchanged the pursuit of ghosts for the greatest picture created by nature itself: the gradual freezing of its waters with ice.
Unique pond
There are not so many areas on the planet with truly clean and clear water. If the first place in this category is occupied by the Sargasso Sea, the transparency of which is 65 meters, then the second is Baikal with an indicator of 40 m, although its photic zone illuminated by the sun is 112 m, as evidenced by the photophilous organisms living there.
The oxygen saturation of lake water is especially clearly seen when frozen Baikal is ice-bound with an incredibly beautiful pattern created by air bubbles. The transparency of lake water is provided by the microorganisms living in it, and in its composition it is closer to distilled, since it is minimally mineralized.
The lake is fed by 336 major rivers and from 544 to 1123 irregular sources formed from melting ice in the mountains or during heavy rainfall. The Angara is the only river flowing out of the lake, and the main supplier of water to Lake Baikal is the Selenga.
Selenga Delta
It is its waters that make up almost 50% of the volume of filling the lake, and the river delta, formed by numerous tributaries and islands, occupies more than 1000 km 2. In this place, the frozen Lake Baikal looks different than in its main part:
- firstly, the confluence of the Selenga is the narrowest on the lake and the distance between its shores is only 26 km (the widest part is 81 km);
- secondly, the warm waters of the river form subtalines in the lower part of the ice; therefore, here it is less reliable even with significant thickness;
- thirdly, cracks are more often formed here, which pose a serious danger to those who decide to go on foot or cross Lake Baikal by car, as some of them reach from half a meter to 4 meters wide.
The remaining rivers feeding the lake are less full-flowing, but at the same time contribute to the general indicator of the purity and transparency of its waters.
Lake waves
Baikal is famous not only for its transparency, but also for the winds, each of which has its own name and blows at a certain time. Thanks to them, the mirror of the lake is rarely calm. For example, in the Strait Olkhonsky gates of the wind form waves up to 4 m high, and in shallow water at the confluence of the Selenga in the reservoir, they reach 6 meters.
As a rule, strong winds begin here in late summer and last all autumn. The local population gave them the following names:
- Verkhovik. Arrives from the upper Angara valley and can blow without stopping for up to 10 days, without causing unrest in the water near the shore, but in the middle of the lake raising white breakers. Their height is negligible in August, but reaches 4 m in November.
- Barguzin. Everybody is happy with a calm gust, because it brings stable sunny weather.
- But you can’t say the same about the kultuk, since its appearance is accompanied by rain, fog and storms.
- The worst, reaching speeds of up to 40 m / s, is the sarma wind. It causes severe storms and can blow for a day without reducing its speed.
When such winds blow in November, a unique phenomenon can be observed: the freezing waves of Lake Baikal, which did not crash onto the shore. Photographers from different countries come, despite such unpleasant weather to take this moment. Photos of the frozen Baikal can be seen in the most prestigious magazines covering the unique places and phenomena of the planet.
Freezing stages
This process lasts quite a long time and begins with the formation of the first thin ice film, which is easily broken by waves. Then, ice growths gradually form along the coast, caused by freezing of the water and popularly referred to as fences.
Where waves hit the rocks, ice stalactites appear, hanging from them. Frozen Baikal surrenders to frost one of the last. As a rule, most of the rivers feeding it are already chained with ice. And only at a temperature of -20 ° C the crust begins to grow on it at a speed of 4-5 cm per day.
In its northern part, the lake is covered with ice for up to 6 months, and the remnants of floating ice can be found here in June, while in the south of the reservoir ice lasts only 4-4.5 months.
Life under the ice
The fact that for how many meters Baikal freezes worries first of all its inhabitants. As a rule, the thickness of the ice on the lake rarely exceeds 2 meters, which makes it possible to drive vehicles weighing up to 15 tons.
Diatoms of endemic lake algae, which do not reduce their activity under the ice, and, on the contrary, increase their biomass to 100 g / m 2, are best winter-borne.
It is so envisioned by wise nature that when forming hummocks caused by the difference in day and night temperatures, the ice collides. At the same time, the sounds that they generate at the time of the collision are not inferior in power to an artillery salvo. Oxygen enters the cracks formed in the ice, allowing the fish to survive under the ice until spring.
