Lake Superior sets a new record for winter ice cover, other lakes are icing up fast.
Lake Superior is 92 percent frozen on the surface, breaking a 20-year-old record of 91 percent set on Feb. 5, 1994. Temperatures continue well below freezing. Have a look at this graph:
As far as all the lakes go, here is the plot of historical maximums:
![IceCoverAvg1973_2013[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/icecoveravg1973_20131.jpg?quality=83)
The number to break is 94.7, set in 1979, which is also a year of some of the worst winter weather ever in the USA, and coincidentally, the peak year year when Arctic sea ice trends were begun via satellite measurements. Right now we are at 78.5%. Just a week ago the ice cover was 66 percent.
Source image (click for update) http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/res/glcfs/glcfs.php?lake=l&ext=ice&type=N&hr=00
UPDATE: this graph from the Canadian Ice Service shows how much above the median the Great lakes have been:
![20140203180000_CVCSWCTGL_0007500871[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/20140203180000_cvcswctgl_00075008711.gif)
This graph shows by year, 2014 is now in third place:
![20140203180000_CVCHDCTGL_0007500868[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/20140203180000_cvchdctgl_00075008681.gif)
References:
Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory
http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/data/ice/
Modis Imagery:
http://coastwatch.glerl.noaa.gov/modis/modis.php?region=g&page=1
Canadian Ice Service:
http://iceweb1.cis.ec.gc.ca/Prod20/page2.xhtml?CanID=11080&lang=en
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Werner Brozek says:
February 8, 2014 at 1:02 pm
“Regardless how warm the air wants to be due to the sun or wind, it seems hard to get higher than 12 or 14 C as long as the snow “emits” 0 C into the air if you know what I mean. But once the snow is gone, then 30 C is no problem.”
The snow absorbs heat from the air and uses it to melt the snow. The phase change leaves the air colder than it was, until the snow is melted.
Canadian Ice Service is showing no open water on Lake Michigan on their map of ice coverage for first time: http://iceweb1.cis.ec.gc.ca/Prod20/page3.xhtml
So, it would seem to mean temps have gotten to the critical 39F as highest top layer lake temp, and will very likely freeze over now (considering weather forecast).
WARNING: We must watch the MSM, though, they may start obfuscating, minimizing, etc. and calling it thin ice or dirty ice or not enough ice or not as good as the 1970s ice …. (no joke). We need someone to do a flyover at the end of the ice growth season this year.
@JBJ Yes, I was saying that, and if I was just explaining it to you … because you are so smart … I could have just said that. On the other hand, if that is all you got out of my post … maybe not so smart as you missed the main point.
About albedo and radiative heat transfer, it is proportional to the fourth root of the absolute temperature difference, proportional to the fourth root of an already small number.
wws says: @ur momisugly February 8, 2014 at 6:13 am
When it is particularly nasty cold here in mid NC, I like to ask people how they like their Global Warming. I usually get a scrunchy face and a grumble.
Sorry: In previous post “open water” not the best term … I mean they are showing “no ice free water for the first time”, so most probably 39F or lower at top layer of lake water.
On the opposite side of the world. In SA of Australia it was 40C yesterday. 29C at 10pm. Nothing unusual about that except if you are of the New climate brigade!
jrlagoni says:
February 8, 2014 at 3:19 pm
“@JBJ Yes, I was saying that, and if I was just explaining it to you … because you are so smart … I could have just said that. On the other hand, if that is all you got out of my post … maybe not so smart as you missed the main point.”
I wasn’t trying to be derogatory!
Lake Ontario is 100 m lower elevation than the other Great Lakes.
If what we are observing (the jump from 50% to almost 100% ice cover in 10 years) is natural variation, just wait until the earth systems say it is time for glaciation. It will be ruthless and no one will escape its rapid trend.
What plans have been made to defend life against this type of massive rapid change?
@RiHo08
Small correction to your statement: … water of Lake Superior flows into the connector of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron at the Straits of Mackinac.
Actually, Lake Superior drains into Lake Huron via the St Mary’s River, the geographic boundary between the US and Canada. The Straits of Mackinac, the point where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron meet, are 50 miles to the south.
Technically Lakes Michigan & Huron are one lake with two major basins, as their surface level is the same thanks to the connection at the Straits of Mackinac. Viewed in this way, Lake Michigan-Huron is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area.
Does anyone here know the average temperatures of the lakes? I know that I could Google it but what factor does that play in the development of the ice?
I’ll throw this into the mix (just for the fun of it), per:
http://www2.apwa.net/about/awards/toptencentury/chica.htm
“The reversal of the Chicago River was a pioneering, massive public works effort that saved the Chicago region from waterborne diseases caused by sewage contamination of its drinking water supply – Lake Michigan. The City’s sewers discharged human and industrial wastes directly to its rivers, which in turn flowed into the lake. A particularly heavy rainstorm in 1885 caused sewage to be flushed into the lake beyond the clean water intakes. The resulting typhoid, cholera, and dysentery epidemics killed an estimated 12 percent of Chicago’s 750,000 residents, and raised a public outcry to find a permanent solution to the city’s water supply and sewage disposal crisis.
In 1889, the State of Illinois enacted a law enabling creation of the Sanitary District of Chicago (which continues to exist today as the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago) for safeguarding Chicago’s water supply. It would do so by constructing canals to make the Chicago River flow backwards, away from the lake.”
========
A long way of saying, there is also an outlet to the Gulf of Mexico now.
The flows are monitored, by the way.
Al Gore must have been up there recently.
Coming rather late in this thread. Just thinking. Since “The Pause” does not exist, at least according to Sceptical Science kidz. They claim the “missing” heat is “hiding” in the Arctic. O.K. So, were is all this very, very cold air coming from in the circumpolar vortex? Wouldn’t the “missing” heat, warm things up? Just asking…
AussieBear.
John A says:
February 8, 2014 at 7:18 am
I’ll pass on Lake Michigan (though it’s looking pretty frozen to me).
Lake Erie freezes readily because it’s a mud puddle compared to the other Great Lakes. It’s average depth is only 62 feet, Ontario is 283. Okay, Michigan is 279.
In the fall “turnover,” the surface water that cools and sinks will cause a big exchange of surface and bottom water, and it takes time for the lakes to reach 4°C whereupon further cooling stays onthe surface and soon freezes.
http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/factsheet.html
http://www.mlive.com/weather/index.ssf/2014/02/great_lakes_added_11_percent_i.html
http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Portals/7/waterinv/GreatLakes_DepthProfileBig.jpg
@aussibear, & lil fellow from OZ
During a cooling period such as now, (which according to my calculations will last until 2038)
you get somewhat more cloud formation and condensation at the lower latitudes and less clouds and condensation at the higher latitudes.
So, especially in some places of higher latitude (Australia, Great Plains) it will become drier, and paradoxically perhaps, also warmer….
Therefore, donot confuse local warming with global cooling
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1987/to:2015/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2015/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1987/to:2015/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2002/to:2015/trend/plot/rss/from:1987/to:2015/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2015/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1987/to:2015/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/to:2015/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1987/to:2002/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1987/to:2002/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1987/to:2002/trend/plot/rss/from:1987/to:2002/trend
Anthony, I put video together this morning to document the sudden drop in Lake Superior’s Ice Concentration after news sources put out all kinds of news articles on so much Ice is on the Great Lakes now and how Superior broke old daily record in 1994 for the date for most ice.
Temperatures were very cold and did not rise to make the ice lower in concentration.
I have been tracking the ice for some time and Looks like Data Tampering to me..
Can you or anyone else take a look at my vid and let me know what you think.
Thanks Chris
RE: @njsnowfan says:
February 9, 2014 at 3:22 am
Good observations. It would be very odd for Lake Superior’s ice to decrease by 5% in the middle of a sub-zero night, without gale force winds ripping at the surface. As conditions were fairly calm for that huge lake, i agree it seems likely some sort of technical “adjustment” was made.
The changes may indeed be due to all the news articles that came out about Lake Superior setting a new (recent time) record. I am not so quick to assume they are trying to make things looks warmer. It may well be that the reason the record was set in the first place was due to some glitch, and what we are seeing is someone’s attempt to hide the blunder, late at night, when they assumed no one was watching. Big mistake. (The web never forgets)
When the boss comes into work on Monday morning he is not going to be pleased.
When “corrections” and “adjustments” are made they should always be documented, and they should be done in an honest and humble manner.
Fortunately we have the satellite pictures, which are harder to “correct” and “adjust.”
Again, thanks for the keen observations. “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.”
@njsnowfan says:
February 9, 2014 at 3:22 am
> Can you or anyone else take a look at my vid and let me know what you think.
On the video you say both that the decline happened during the coldest part of the night and show maps to show the decline (and incline for Lake Michigan) happened at 1900 UTC. That’s not the coldest part of the night, it’s 1400 EST, 2 PM.
It sure has the look of someone decreasing the sensitivity of an ice dectector, but that does’t explain what happened to Lake Michigan.
I don’t have time to help out, but perhaps you and Caleb can check out cloud cover over the lakes. Perhaps that obscured the microwave signal or whatever is used to remotely sense ice.
njs,
Are you sure those animations aren’t from models? After clicking on “Ice” for Lake Superior on the GLERL GLCFS page, I found a page which linked to animations that appears to be the one you showed in your video. Here is the page which had the Lake Superior animation links: http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/res/glcfs/glcfs-ice.php?lake=s&type=N&hr=00 . On the top of this page (before you click on the animation), it says: “Lake Superior Ice Cover Using POMGL Ice Model”. Perhaps meterorological inputs to the model caused the unusual dynamics shown in the animation.
Another thing that might have led to the “decrease” is the simple fact the wind slacked off, which gave various cracks and openings in the ice time to warm the air closest to the ice. That in turn could effect the model’s readings and interpretations of whether the area viewed is ice-covered or not. In other words, it isn’t a visual thing, looking at actual ice versus actual water. Rather it is a measurement of temperature, which is plugged into some best-guess formula, which decides if it is water or ice. (I don’t know this; it is merely my benefit-of-the-doubt surmising.)
For 5% of the ice to vanish might simply involve the 2 meter air temperatures rising from zero to thirty, which can occur over incompletely ice-covered lakes when the wind slacks off. It has nothing to do with the ice actually forming or melting. The model is simply programmed to think the ice is there when the temperature is zero, and think this ice cannot be there when the temperature is thirty.
In such a case no data-tampering need be involved. Instead we are just witnessing the imperfections of a model.
I’ll fly over Lake Superior in a helicopter to check out the actual ice, as soon as someone arranges the funding for me.
Is there a discrepancy with the Environment Canada information?
http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/App/WsvPrdCanQry.cfm?CanID=11080&Lang=eng
Bryan Johnson says:
“Hell, Michigan is in southeastern Michigan, just northwest of Ann Arbor. I just checked and the local temperature of 8 F so, yes, Hell has frozen over.”
But Paradise (Michigan) has frozen over too, it is 1 F on 2/9/2014 as of 11 AM EST.