Michigan Lake Levels Not Changed By Global Warming After All

Regarding the photo of the “frozen wave phenomenon”, the photo itself is among many taken at the Antarctic base of Dumont D’Urville by Tony Travouillon in 2002. The idea it was taken at Lake Huron is a hoax. Not that it wasn’t really, really cold this winter, but still, not quite like the Antarctic – yet!
http://www.snopes.com/photos/natural/antarcticwave.asp

The “frozen wave” photo has been in circulation for some time and is fraudulent, at least in that it is not Lake Huron depicted. The shots were taken, I believe, in Antarctica and are posted on a website showing shots of some scientists’ Antarctic trip.

I’ve worked for the last 20 years or so for a company that runs boats in Lake Ontario. I can attest that the low lake levels we saw a few years ago are no longer. In fact, in the last few years they are higher than normal. It’s easy to see by the decline/incline of the shore ramps that attach to the boat. A few years back the decline angle from shore to boat deck was close to 35-40 degrees which caused us to drasticly reduce the weight of vehicles we’d load for fear that the weight could cause the boat to decouple from the shore ramp. Now, the decline is probably no more than 5 degrees.
Back when the levels were low, most of the passengers we’d transport were sure that GW was the cause. We don’t hear a peep out of any of them now.

According to Snopes the “Ice wave” picture comes from Antarctica, not lake huron.
http://www.snopes.com/photos/natural/antarcticwave.asp

Alex (09:26:20) :
It seems that predictions of empty lakes won’t happen soon, speaking of predictions; here is an interesting vintage article: http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast19oct98_1.htm
It seems that unlike now, back in 1998 Hathaway’s predictions were spot on!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yeah, right: “They [Hathaway, Wilson, and Reichmann] expect Cycle 23 to continue until sometime in 2006 when the next cycle, Cycle 24, should begin.”
If only they had left that last sentence out!

Re post-glacial rebound:
The way I understand this to be happening is that the rebound from the ice age continues but at an uneven rate as you go from South to North as one might expect if you think about it. The regions more to the North had more ice for a longer period of time. Rebound happens quickly at first and slows over time. The Northern regions lost its ice cover last so is currently rebounding at a faster rate than the Southern regions. What this means is that the crust under the lakes appears to be “tilting” or tipping from North to South. As this progresses, the shoreline recedes in the North and advances in the South. This is sort of like taking a saucer, placing some water in the middle and then lifting one edge.
So even without a net change in water volume, to someone on the Canadian side, the lake level will appear to be dropping but to someone on the US side, the lake will appear to be rising when it is possible that it is doing neither. Given a static water volume, due to post-glacial crustal rebound, the shorelines will recede in the North and provide concrete “evidence” to Canadians that the lake level is “dropping”.
This is going to be difficult to counter with logic and information because it is hard to convince someone that something they can see is caused by something they can’t see. They can’t perceive the change in elevation but, over the decades, they can directly see the change in shoreline.
Given the state of our education system these days and the fact that they tend to teach popular “conventional wisdom” over real scientific fact, we are quite possibly doomed. First you “dumb down” the population, then you take advantage of their ignorance in order to gain your agenda. Sad, really.

Graph of this season’s weekly ice coverage from the Canadian Ice Service.

“Never assume what you’re trying to prove unless you’re just trying to prove you’re an idiot.”
I think that’s worth a nomination for “Quote of the Week”!
Or perhaps it should be reprinted in 6-foot high letters and pasted on the wall above every scientist’s desk.
Thank you, fellow Skeptic.

I’ve been following the progress/regress of the AGW movement for some time, and I can’t say that the name “GBA Foundation” rings a bell. I wonder, from where do they obtain their funding? ;->

The all time low water level RECORDED on Lake Superior was in the mid 1920’s, 1924 I believe.
I observed the lake level go slowly down for few years and then saw it come back up very quickly. Measured it against boat slips.
One storm event brought the level way back up in October 2006. Prior to that there had been a three year drought in Superior’s catchment area. Hence the lake level was dropping.
As the ice cover broke up this year, as in 2006, and the ice floes reached shore they were beautiful to behold. Pale blue/green in color. Absolutely magnificent.
Now if I was an AGW proponent I would be able to claim both the drought which reduced the level and the storm event that filled it up again as proving my theory wouldn’t I ?
My take ? Natural variation.

astronmr20 (11:28:10) :
He’s using this chart:
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20090406_Figure3.png
The graph he’s showing is not recent to this date. The trend in that graph shows a 2.6% / decade downtrend, or 26% / century. Doesn’t sound so alarming in that context. Tell him the Arctic will be ice-free in 2378 A.D.

How apropos that this article follows the article about the NY Times mess. A fine example to set for the perhaps soon-to-be late NY Times. It speaks volumes about WUWT that an error is caught, pointed out civily, and quickly corrected; it’s not hidden, ignored, or corrected in a day or two.
Hey, NY Times, you listening?
And interesting as well the snopes.com piece about the “ice waves.”

The GBA (Georgian Bay Association) is a non-profit environmental group based out of Perry Sound, Ontario. Their chief spokesperson is Mary Muter, a nurse and environmental activist.
The GBA paid for a 2004 study that blamed declining levels in Lake Huron (and Georgian Bay) on dredging in Lake Sinclair (the lake between Huron and Erie).
They are disputing the findings of a report for the IJC authored by the US Army Corp of Engineers (apparently a notorious anti-environmental group funded by Big Oil) that found that lake levels are natural and not influenced by people, but rather by isostatic rebound and dry weather.
GBA claims the IJC study ignores important data (theirs apparently). As we all know only data from environmental groups is valid.

geo (10:31:08) :
The real problem is the premise that they really know the proper equation in the first place. Many of us believe the real equation that needs to be dealt with is much more likely to be something like X + 2/3Y – 4Q * Z/B = 2.
X still equals 2.
Provided:
Y = 1
Q = 2
Z = 1
B = 12

A show on The History Channel, “How The Earth Was Made : The Great Lakes,” says the same thing, literally saying it is not global warming. The show is scheduled to be on again Tuesday.
the schedule :
http://www.history.com/shows.do?action=detail&episodeId=416540

The description of “How The Earth Was Made : The Great Lakes, ” on The History Channel :
“The Great Lakes of North America are the largest expanse of fresh water on the planet. Searching for clues of their formation, our geologists delve deep into an underground salt mine, investigate a fossilized coral reef, climb an Alpine glacier, and dive to the bottom of Lake Superior. They find evidence of an ancient tropical sea, a mighty rift that almost tore the continent in half, and a mile high ice sheet that repeatedly carved its way across North America. And as the lakes settle to their current levels, cascading over Niagara Falls, we find that their evolution is far from over.”

jack mosevich (14:07:24) :
“OT again: Catliners not yet resupplied. When will they start worrying?”
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/latestfromtheice
No worries! I’ve been tracking the last 7 days as they’ve been the tent. They’ve gotten 35.7 km closer to the pole, averaging 5.1km per day. At that rate, they’ll float into the North Pole on or about July 10!

Great posting — There is always hope, then there is change, and then reality intrudes.
The pretzels these people twist themselves into, must really be painful.
Why not just stick to the facts … Scientific facts BTW, are provable and verifiable by other researchers. That’s why it is important to be open with all the supporting evidence and data. We seemed to have lost that fact along the way.
I say we take nothing as fact until the complete dataset(s), methods and conclusions arrived at, are published. Oops, isn’t that what is supposed to happen but doesn’t right now?

Methinks the AGW wants to glaciate all the data. Scour it away under a mile of alamist fireice. Global warming dries up the lakes, global warming fills up the lakes, global warming controls the news, global warming tucks us in at night.
Global Warming requires Trillions of Dollars to fix.
It’s so terribly confused, starving and incredibly insulting.
It needs rehab.
Hello, my name is Al. I’m a global warmaholic.
I’m better now, please continue to send donations to my habit, I mean cause.

OT
I heard a David Suzuki interviewe on CBC radio. One of his primary arguments is that of the pine beetle destruction in British Columbia. He suggests that it is warmth that is causing the beetle to thrive.
I got to thinking about forests. There have been more huge forest fires as of late due to poor forest management practices that has seen a buildup of old wood. Normally small forest fires keep such fuel to a minimum naturally; however, fighting forest fires aggressively since the 1930s as more people move to wooded areas has resulted in too much forest fire fuel to build up. We have been seeing massive forest fires for the past decade as a result. These same forest management principles also permit more food and habitat to remain for the pine beetles. As well, the fires that would be able to kill many of the beetles and their eggs have not occurred.
Warmth — or more the lack of -30 C days in winter that normally kills the beetles — is suggested as being the primary factor in the current infestation; however, I think my answer is just as plausible especially considering that the last 10 years has seen the temperature plateau and start to decline slightly.
If the pine beetles are still a problem though 2008 was cool and this past winter was quite cold — there were more successive days with -30 C in many affected areas like Alberta — then forest management would have to be the primary factor in the outbreak of the pine beetle.
Does this make sense to you?
John M Reynolds

“The experiment conclusively demonstrates that greenhouses heat up and stay warm by confining heated air rather than by trapping IR. ”
Which reminds me of another mechanism that is missed when people consider atmospheric greenhouses. An atmosphere rich in CO2 would tend to moderate daytime high temperatures and lessen the day/night difference in temperature. In other words, it would moderate both the daytime high and nighttime low temperatures.
The sun radiates more in the infrared than in the visible spectrum. This would heat an atmosphere more that has a higher CO2 content, the heated air would rise and radiate the heat back into space.
At night, the atmosphere would again trap long wave radiation, it would also rise but some of that gets re-radiated back to the ground on the way.

“Unfortunately due to the math involved it is very difficult to explain the so called “greenhouse” effect to laymen, in addition to the fact that even the mathematical derivations make a lot of assumptions that make things confusing to laymen.”
You don’t have to be any kind of expert to realize that servitude is planned for the workers of America. Our children and grandchildren have already been placed under the yoke of a moral and righteous government.

Wally (18:26:50)
And that eclipse you observed, what was the temperature drop over that time span?

Steve Moore (13:52:48) :
geo (10:31:08) :
The real problem is the premise that they really know the proper equation in the first place. Many of us believe the real equation that needs to be dealt with is much more likely to be something like X + 2/3Y – 4Q * Z/B = 2.
X still equals 2.
Provided:
Y = 1
Q = 2
Z = 1
B = 12

==========
AHA! Here is a learning example, Steve. Instead of provided , we must use AGW terminology:
X still equals 2
If we assume:
Y = 1
Q = 2
Z = 1
B = 12
However, careful measurements show:
Y = 2
Q = .707
Z = 4,000
B = 1
But, the robust models suggest these flimsy and unproven measurements must be wrong, so they are adjusted!
See how it works?

Mike Bryant (18:40:51)
The common man knows it, too.
They know that if they even get a chance to work under the AGW plan, it’s going to be a most painful experience.
We used to laugh at condos being fancy cardboard boxes.

From the article above: “As a matter of fact, just two months ago there was resaerch presented in the press hypothesizing that global warming was causing less ice on the Great Lakes, for which I had this response:”
Well, I know where it went!
http://www.wnem.com/news/18885556/detail.html

Wally,
you need a bit of English before you tell us about the math

Nenana Ice Classic: May 1, 2009, 8:41 pm. About 32 of about 90 years or so. On the early, but not very early, side.

Mr Wally said: “if you do not have the math background and the will to use it the papers involved (that provide detailed explanations) can be hard to follow. I have some background in math (graduate level) but seldom have the will to go to the trouble of reading a paper with lots equations close enough to tell if the author is making mistakes or not. It most cases you need to know, besides the math, the background of the methods used, what assumptions are made, how valid are those assumptions etc. so in the end either you have to do a lot of work to get acquainted with the body of work involved or you rely on the opinion of experts you trust.”
To an extent I agree, but only to the extent that analysing mathematical papers sheds any light on the single issue arising in the whole debate.
There is only one issue.
We can happily concede that increased carbon dioxide production by naughty human beings increases the proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (and you can define atmosphere any way you want).
We can happily concede that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is likely to increase surface temperatures somewhere across the globe, be it on land or at sea or both.
We can happily concede that naughty human beings are directly responsible for that increase, wherever and to whatever degree (no pun intended) it happens.
But none of that gets anywhere near what the alarmists claim. They claim there are magical qualities, to date unobserved in nature, that will cause an amplification of temperature increases beyond those calculable by established “greenhouse gas” analyses.
The single issue is whether that claim is sustainable. Unless they either confirm that claim or provide a credible challenge to it, no number of scare stories or debunking stories or mathematical analyses sheds any light on anything of relevance.
There is a great danger of being side-tracked into debate about whether there is or is not a warming trend and whether there is or is not evidence of a current rise in average sea levels. None of that matters because the question is not whether things are changing, the only thing that matters is whether there is evidence for the amplification theory. I stress “evidence”. Theory written on a piece of paper and then pumped into a sausage machine computer is worthless without evidence.
Evidence consistent with either warming or lack of warming tells us little, if anything, about the amplification theory. It is easy to think that evidence of lack of warming debunks the theory, but it doesn’t. Nor does evidence of warming support the theory unless it goes so far as to provide at least prima facie evidence of amplification, which even the most ardent warmists have not yet claimed.

I agree with Mr. FatBigot, that there is no evidence as yet. But, the AGWers have cleverly conditioned their claims around imminent tipping points, and dire predictions of doom and drowning. Mr. FatBigot, as a lawyer, will know that imminent harm is a legal basis for demanding relief.
Their tactic is, as some have described it, to use the Precautionary Principle to provoke action. The harm they predict is so great, that modern mankind is urged, no, required, to act not only now, but in massive ways to greatly alter our ways of life.
To not act in the way and at the time they prescribe is to subject this generation and all future generations to living in an unbearable world.
The EPA adopted similar language in their recent Proposed Finding on CO2 as harmful to humans.

There’s one more key piece to add to FB’s post. Mann’s hockey stick is -the- crucial piece allowing the implication of carbon dioxide. The Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period are fatal to that process – since they don’t show up as expected in the carbon dioxide records. So the hockey stick marginalizes them as ‘regional’ and flattens them out of the record. And the math and methods for the hockey stick are eminently understandable. And bogus.
Historians have articles discussing the breadth and depth of the LIA & MWP over easily half the globe. But they don’t provide the actual numbers, and they’re focused on their own regions.
But you can back your way through Mann’s math.

Re the imminent tipping points, what is it, 800 ppm CO2? Roughly a doubling of the 385 ppm now? (I rounded off to one significant digit).
I would like an AGW proponent to please explain why we should be concerned with 800 ppm, when in the past the atmosphere had more than 1000 ppm CO2. No tipping point.
And please explain how the Earth made it through the 2000 ppm period, without a tipping point.
And the 4000 ppm period, again with no tipping point.
How exactly did the ice ages occur after all those CO2 concentrations measured in the thousands? I am led to believe by the AGWers that a mere 800 ppm will cause an irreversible and inevitable runaway in global temperatures, in an increasing manner. What is different this time, that only 800 ppm will cause the tipping point?

A bit o/t. Don’t know where to post.
The North Pole webcam internal temperature has jumped to +4.0C.
Four days ago it was -8.5C. Can weather do this?
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/latest/noaa1.jpg
REPLY: Absolutely, weather can change temperatures far more than that.

” Al (21:57:12) : But you can back your way through Mann’s math.”
Apparently Steven Chu likes Principia Mannmathics too. He, like Al Gore, is a Nobel winner. Scratching my head over this Nobel necessity.
Richard Fenyman wasn’t too thrilled with the Nobel either.

Adam from Kansas: You asked, “What is the difference between the map he uses and the one used by the NOAA, his map data shows the South Atlantic as off the charts warm, but the NOAA map shows a giant blue spot in the middle of it with a few little orange and red spots to the south of that. Which map is right?”
The one I posted in my monthly update for April 2009 is also from NOAA. Monthly update:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/05/april-2009-sst-anomaly-update.html
It’s from the NCDC’s NOMADS system.
http://nomad3.ncep.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/pdisp_sst.sh?lite=
Under “Control File” select “monoiv.ctl” for “Monthly”. Under “Plot Type” select “Map”. Click “Next Page”.
Under “Field” select “ssta” for anomalies. The month should be at the current default of April 2009. Click on “Plot”. The map will appear in a new window.
What’s the other map you’re discussing??

To add to those who have commented above and who have first-hand experience wrt Great Lakes water levels, the lakes go up and the lakes go down.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=749#comment-36188
But if catastrophic AGW proponents want to expend a lot of energy on Great Lakes water levels, I guess it keeps ’em off the streets.

The other map is this one
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/anomnight.4.30.2009.gif
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/climo.html
You see a big difference with South Atlantic anomalies between the map you use and the map NOAA makes available.
Notice the big blue spot in the South Atlantic, while the NCDC map shows above average anomalies throughout virtually that entire area and your charts saying it did another big warming jump rather than cooling back down like it has done dependably through the entire period, but I look at the NOAA charts I linked to from the beginning of April and I didn’t really see that big a warming since then.
I look at these because they’re easy to access and they have pretty colors, NOAA’s charts seem reasonably good for ocean temperatures despite the somewhat broken Ice Sensor.

So what does that mean? By what I’m witnessing, I don’t believe in global warming too.

Here are graph’s of the Great Lakes water levels since 1918. Nothing abnormal here.
http://www.lre.usace.army.mil/greatlakes/hh/datalinks/PrinterFriendly/quickGraph.pdf

Dakota James wrote it, and I believed it. Namely, that Lake Michigan would dry up by the late 1990s (“Greenhouse: It WILL Happen in 1997!”) opening up new land to speculate on, right adjacent to the northern lakefront in Chicagoland. Oh man, now … what a financial hangover … if only I’d invested in pork belly futures! / s

Lake Level update. Home owners on the Great Lakes are complaining that they are losing beachfront to the rising lake levels.
http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2009/05/lake_michigan_water_levels_swa.html