Deep-water renewal in Lake Baikal

The paper presents an attempt to describe water exchange in Lake Baikal pro ceeding from interpretation of tracer (freon-12) contents and temperature o f water. Destruction of the metastable equilibrium of the surface water lay er in the cold season at reverse stratification is suggested as a controlli ng mechanism of deep-water renewal. A system of one-dimensional equations o f substance (for the tracer) and heat budget is proposed. The solution to a n inverse problem for turbulence coefficients and water exchange flows show s a considerable role of turbulence in the upper layers of deep-water colum n. The depth-dependent distribution function of sinking surface water parce ls is found.