A Three-Dimensional, Time-Dependent Circulation Model of Utah Lake

The thermal behavior of Utah Lake, situated in northern Utah, is modeled over a spring-to-fall period using environmental forcing data from the year 2007. Results compare favorably with previously obtained data for temperature distributions around the lake during midsummer 2007. During the spring months, when experimental data is not available, the model predicts strong and rapid variations in the water temperature, which correlate well with significant storms on the lake. A heat balance shows that the largest components of heat fluxes into and out of the lake are due to short wave solar and evaporative cooling, respectively. Both numerical and experimental results also indicate that, due to the shallow nature of the lake and occurrence of significant wind events, thermal stratification is never achieved.