Great Lakes ice coverage falls 71 percent over 40 years, researcher says

[cal04]

Great Lakes ice coverage declined an average of 71 percent over the past 40 years, according to a report from the American Meteorological Society.

The amount of decline varies year to year and lake to lake, according to the report's lead researcher, Jia Wang, an ice research climatologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Wang’s report said that based on Coast Guard scanning, satellite photos and other research from 1973 to 2010, ice coverage dropped most on Lake Ontario, 88 percent; the second-largest loss was on Lake Superior, at 79 percent.

(snip)
Wang told the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper that natural climatic variables such as El Nino, La Nina play as much a role in the ice decline as a warming global climate.

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/10/10636825-great-lakes-ice-coverage-falls-71-percent-over-40-years-researcher-says

[Land Shark]

1. we're seeing unusually ice-free L. Superior by us n/t

[MichiganVote]

6. Used to be impossible to swim in Lake Superior/MI. Not anymore.

[susanna]

8. I'm in Detroit

On the Detroit River - it didn't freeze this year at all. Very strange...

[ananda]

2. It is global warming.

It is exactly that.

[nanabugg]

3. You left-wing, tree huggers, and global warming nuts ought to stop...

reporting inconvenient truths!

[obxhead]

4. I would love to see the year by year comparison.

I'm in no way a climate change denier, but ice coverage can just be weather. 3 years ago the inlet on the lake I live on froze a solid 1 foot thick, this year it never got cold enough for ice.

It would be interesting to see how the coverage varied from "normal" year by year.

[daleo]

7. 71% reduction over 40 years

That's a pretty long time series.

[obxhead]

9. I understand.

I would still like to see the year by year comparisons they used to arrive at that average.

[Viking12]

10. This should get you started

http://www.in.gov/dnr/lakemich/files/Tue_Stardust2_300_Jia_Wang_TemporaL_anD_Spatial_Variability_of_Great_Lakes_Ice_Cover.pdf

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2011JCLI4066.1

[obxhead]

11. That has a lot of info.

Thank you very much.

[liberal N proud]

4. There was no ice on Erie this year.

Last several saw ice forming mid-January and stayed to late march on average.