As the global water balance accelerates in a warming climate, extreme fluctuations in the water levels of lakes and aquifers are anticipated, with biogeochemical, ecological and water supply consequences. However, it is unclear how site-specific factors, such as location, morphometry and hydrology, will modulate these impacts on regional spatial scales. Here, we report water level time series collected by citizen scientists for 15 diverse inland lakes in the upper Laurentian Great Lakes region from 2010 to 2020, and we compare these time series with those for the two largest Great Lakes, Lake Superior and Lake Michigan-Huron. Combined with historical data (1942–2010), the findings indicate that lakes spanning seven orders of magnitude in size (10⁻² to 10⁵ km²) all rebounded from record low to record high water levels during the recent decade. They suggest coherent water level oscillations among regional lakes (large and small) implying a common, near-decadal, climatic driver that may be changing.

随着气候变暖，全球水平衡加速，预计湖泊和含水层的水位会出现极端波动，从而产生生物地球化学、生态和供水后果。然而，尚不清楚特定地点的因素，如位置、形态学和水文，将如何调节这些对区域空间尺度的影响。在这里，我们报告了公民科学家从 2010 年到 2020 年为上劳伦森五大湖地区15 个不同的内陆湖泊收集的水位时间序列，并将这些时间序列与两个最大的五大湖苏必利尔湖和密歇根湖的时间序列进行了比较——休伦。结合历史数据（1942-2010 年），研究结果表明，湖泊跨越七个数量级（10 ^-2到 10 ⁵  km² ) 近十年水位均从历史低位反弹至历史高位。他们提出区域湖泊（大大小小的）之间一致的水位波动，这意味着可能正在发生变化的共同的、近十年的气候驱动因素。