At night, as cold settles in, lake ice creaks and groans. It’s been excessively cold, and I camped exposed on the snow-swept surface. Other than the lack of vegetation and the sounds at night, you’d never know you were on a lake. It feels like an empty plain. In some places, you see pressure ridges where ice has pushed into itself, sticking up like clear blue stegosaurus plates. — Craig Childs
Author Craig Childs is not describing an Arctic lake. He’s describing the bitterly cold and frozen scene on Lake Superior, during his February 2014 trek on the ice near the coast of Ashland, Wisconsin.
Zoom out to view the scene from a satellite perspective and it’s apparent that Lake Superior is not the only lake to feel the freeze. The true-color image above, from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite, shows the mostly frozen state of the Great Lakes on Feb. 19. On that date, ice spanned 80.3 percent of the lakes, according to NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Mich.
The ice reached an even greater extent on Feb. 13, when it covered about 88 percent of the Great Lakes – coverage not achieved since 1994, when ice spanned over 90 percent. In addition to this year, ice has covered more than 80 percent of the lakes in only five other years since 1973. The average annual maximum ice extent in that time period is just over 50 percent. The smallest maximum ice cover occurred in 2002, when only 9.5 percent of the lakes froze over.
Scientists say it’s understandable that the Great Lakes have had so much ice this year considering the cold temperatures in the region that persisted through the winter. Cold air temperatures remove heat from the water until it reaches the freezing point, at which point ice begins to form on the surface, explained Nathan Kurtz, cryospheric scientist NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
“Persistently low temperatures across the Great Lakes region are responsible for the increased areal coverage of the ice,” Kurtz said. “Low temperatures are also the dominant mechanism for thickening the ice, while secondary factors like clouds, snow, and wind also play a role.”
The freeze this year has local implications, including possible changes to snowfall amounts in the Great Lakes area, explained Walt Meier, also a cryospheric scientist at NASA Goddard. When the lakes are primarily open water, cold air picks up moisture from the relatively warm and moist lake water, often resulting in lake effect snow on the lee side of the lakes, on the eastern and southern shores. When the lakes freeze, the lake effect generally shuts down. “Although this year, they’re still picking up a fair amount of snow,” Meier said.
Lake levels could also see an impact by summer, as winter ice cover generally reduces the amount of water available to evaporate during winter months. If that turns out to be the case, it would be “good news for local water supplies, as well as for shipping and recreational use,” Meier said.
It remains to be seen when the Great Lakes will once again freeze to the extent reached in 2014, or at least enough to allow adventurers to reach the ice caves at Lake Superior’s Apostle Islands National Lakeshore by foot.
A 2012 study in the Journal of Climate by scientists at NOAA’s Great Lakes lab, which included data from MODIS, found that winter season ice cover on Lake Superior has decreased 79 percent from 1973 to 2010. The study also showed that ice cover on the lakes is highly variable and difficult to predict.
The harsh season this year “is a reminder that winters are variable and that weather can always throw an outlier our way,” said Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist and climate modeler at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.
Source: NASA AQUA satellite page
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Readers might note that the reason that the ice coverage abruptly went from 88% to 80% likely had to do with wind compacting the ice, not any temperature change – Anthony
Related: The Great Lakes may hit record ice cover this year
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Leo Geiger
We had a cold one last year in 2013 but some places have had huge amounts of mountain snow this year in Europe – Scotland, the Pyrenees and the southern Alps from France to Austria.
We had a run of colder winters from 2008/9 to 2012/13, similar in fact to the run we had in the early to mid 1980s. In the middle of that period, 1982/3 was very mild.
Here in Norway it seems that the Brits stole our rain in January, and that USA stole our cold in December, January and February? They both will now have to pay a lot to Norway for the damage they have done to us?
@jon – “Here in Norway it seems that the Brits stole our rain in January, and that USA stole our cold in December, January and February?”
How much to take the cold back? 😉
http://mynorth.com/2014/02/video-of-lake-michigan-ice-caves-off-the-coast-of-leelanau-in-northern-michigan/
Here is a link to some video of the caves formed by the wind along the coast of western Michigan. These show show the reason Lake Michigan is not more iced over. The ice has been getting blown toward the shore. We had 60+ mph winds recently that moved the ice, closed numerous roads, closed the Mackinac Bridge, shut the schools through out northern Michigan.
Yesterday while driving to work on I75 in the UP I checked my truck temperature readout and it was minus 31 F along much of the road but only minus 12 F on the Mackinac Bridge. Then back to minus 18 once off the bridge.
R. Shearer
They already have had Wolverines walk there. 🙂
The start of the MLB season should be real fun to watch as the players are forced to wear parkas & mukluks with cleats, while the ball boys sit on toaster ovens full of heated baseballs. Perhaps the Chicago
ScrubsCubs could invite Teh Team to throw out the firstpitchsnowball on Opening Day? 😀Mervyn says:
March 1, 2014 at 5:42 am
“Because the IPCC faithful have the upper hand with their climate change propaganda, I dread to think about the damage being caused by the political indoctrination occurring at all levels of the education system.”
Given the cataclysmic visions that will never come to pass that they are teaching our children I can only shake my head in disgust.
i think the significance of the cold weather reports were some people claiming to be experts kept claiming they were 95% certain they would never happen again.
the uk had the cold last year. it was cold till june.
Obviously there are many interpolatry indicities of coagulated formationary consistencies with climate models.
According to a new study by Mann/Schmidt/Hansen/Jones/Trenberth/Romm the current winter of discombobulation reveals signs that AGW may be the cause of climate projection disruption.
Were it not for the CO2 emissions and GHG calamity climate scientists would be able to better predict future climate.
This provides another good reason to reduce CO2 emissions. To make is easier to project future climate.
Live wed cam. Grand Haven Michigan. Watch people on lake now.
http://surfgrandhaven.com/cms/
Scientists say it’s understandable that the Great Lakes have had so much ice this year considering the cold temperatures in the region that persisted through the winter. Cold air temperatures remove heat from the water until it reaches the freezing point, at which point ice begins to form on the surface, explained Nathan Kurtz, cryospheric scientist NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
I know a couple of people have spoken up but hey, Nathan, thanks for helping us all out with that. Who knew?
/facepalm
zootcadillac,
Lake Erie used to be dirty. I grew up next to it, and I remember the stories about the local river [the Cuyahoga] catching fire, etc.
But they have really cleaned it up. The EPA says the fish are fit to eat, and the water is clean.
So don’t worry. Something will eventually get you. But it won’t be Lake Erie. ☺
Steve McIntyre says: March 1, 2014 at 8:10 am
… Edmonton had a high of -29 and a low of -41. The talk show said that the high on Mars (-22) was warmer than Edmonton.
Mars has more CO2 than Edmonton.
An “outlier” (G. Schmidt’s word choice) implies a rare event. When the Great Lakes freeze this much it is not a rare event, in my view. It seems some really do try to exploit the common people’s collective weather event “amnesia.”
Mike McMillan says: “Mars has more CO2 than Edmonton.”
Clearly, the Martians do not respect their environment and need to seriously retrofit their gas guzzling UFO’s. By gosh – a new opportunity for AlGore!
Steve McIntyre says:
March 1, 2014 at 8:10 am
yesterday, even the sports talk shows were talking about the cold. According to the commentators, Edmonton had a high of -29 and a low of -41. The talk show said that the high on Mars (-22) was warmer than Edmonton.
——————————–
But that’s cuz the Martian atmosphere is over 95% CO2.
/sarc
how many co2ers does it take to change a light bulb?
Five. One to change the bulb four others to write reports about how much co2 its caused.
This is probably going to be the worst year ever in the record books for flooding of the Red River basin. I hope those promised levees are in place. I hope too those who live there who can are packed up and ready to go on short notice.
Leo Geiger says:
March 1, 2014 at 5:32 am
Another indication of cold winter weather becoming less common would be that it is apparently such an unusual thing this blog has dedicated a large number of posts to the subject this winter. Rare enough these days to be ‘newsworthy’ apparently.
That’s just plain idiocy. First, I doubt there any more posts than usual this winter than any other (but, who’s counting?). Secondly, on what planet do you live, where cold winter weather is becoming less common? Here on planet Earth, indications are that we are in a cooling phase, despite the fervent imaginings of the Warmist ideologues.
Can anyone explain why Lake Erie is essentially totally frozen over, but Lake Ontario almost not at all?
@ur momisugly mkelly. Had my wife watch part of the mynorth.com clip on the ice caves. She said, “Where are the penguins?”
looking for something to add to my fire to keep warm. CO2 deathstar reports should have a calorific value on them then they might actually be useful.
Caleb says:
March 1, 2014 at 6:39 am
“The harsh season this year “is a reminder that winters are variable and that weather can always throw an outlier our way,” said Gavin Schmidt…”
An outlier is better than an out-and-out-liar.
Caleb,
You win the Best Quip Of The Week award! Nice…
Mac
@dbstealey Thank you for your reassuring comment. One important piece of data I managed to omit is that this was back in 1980. But yeah. I think it would have got me before now.
I’ve fallen into the Manchester ship canal in the 80’s and that didn’t kill me ( you could light that thing on fire in places and the locals called the feces and used condoms floating by, “Salford Salmon”. )
Still kicking up a fuss 🙂
Leo Geiger- my Geiger counter says your brain
is not functioning!! Rare ice and snow eh??
Another blind man.
“Cold air temperatures remove heat from the water until it reaches the freezing point, at which point ice begins to form on the surface, explained Nathan Kurtz, cryospheric scientist NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.”
No kidding. I needed a cryospheric scientist to tell me that? How about instead of tossing words like “outlier” about, all the Alarmists simply admit that all these “extreme” events they keep blaming global warming for are nothing but natural variability which has been seen before? And admit that nothing politicians are doing has any impact other than to hurt the poor people because it’s driving the cost of energy up?
Or are they going to claim that the freezes which happened decades ago were caused by one mechanism, while it’s the evil mankind created global warming which is responsible now (that seemed to be the gist of what John Holdren was saying, that global warming had destablized the “Arctic Vortex”…that, like this article, was IMHO nothing more than an appeal for people not to jump ship—speaking of the “ship of fools”…)?
If so, what was that other mechanism?? Prove that it existed, and that it’s not still responsible now, and Alarmists might force everyone to sit up and pay attention. But I’m betting they cannot, because the same thing that was responsible then is responsible now, and it’s not mankind’s CO2 out put.
This appears to be nothing but a cutesy-geewhiz! sort of report by people sympathetic to Alarmists (note the quote by Gavin Schmidt) to soften the impact of the thought that despite the increasingly strident tone that “It’s getting warmer!” in AR5, FAR, TAR, etc. back to Schneider, people are cold and paying the price of the idiotic policies propounded by these wolf-criers, and falling off the Green, smiles-and-rainbows-and-happy-polar-bears Warmist-wagon because, you got it, when you’re freezing, it’s kinda hard to worry about being too warm.
It ain’t all sunshine and unicorns when you’re freezing and forking big bucks over to the power companies, is it?
Oh! One last time: since they’re making so much money, thanks to the increases in the cost of every form of energy because of the policies of the Green-leaning political class and the Alarmist crowd, just who is it that Big Oil and the rest supposedly funding again? Anthony, are you holding out on us?
7;->
Echoing Curt at 9:45 am
Why is Ontario so different than Erie? Waste heat from powerplants? I’d think Erie had just as many. Geothermal hotspot? Is it much deeper than Erie so volume/surface-area is larger?
By the way…. We have Argo making vertical profiles of the deep ocean. Is anyone making daily temperature profiles of any of the Great Lakes? A moored solar powered bouy ought to do the trick just fine. IF someone is measuring, what is the project name and what is a link to the data analysis?