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Global warming affects Lake Baikal

Rising temperatures in the world's largest fresh water lake, located in frigid Siberia, show the region is responding strongly to global warming, Russian and US scientists said on Thursday.

"Warming of this isolated but enormous lake is a clear signal that climate change has affected even the most remote corners of our planet," Stephanie Hampton, a co-author of the report, which was published in the journal Global Change Biology, was reported as saying.

The study details the effects of climate change on Lake Baikal, Science Daily reported, from the warming of its vast waters to the reorganisation of its microscopic food web.

Lake Baikal is a World Heritage site because of its biological diversity. It boasts 2,500 plant and animal species; most, including the freshwater seal, are found nowhere else in the world.

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