She’d bring what little equipment she had out to the ice, perch on an overturned five-gallon bucket, and sit there for hours, tipping the nose of the rod up and down like a conductor’s baton, calling to the symphony of fish below. However, some scientists predict that by the end of the 2030s, there will be 15 to 16 fewer days with the minimum temperature below freezing in the Great Lakes basin, and by the 2050s a few more. Climate experts forecast air temperatures in the Great Lakes basin to rise by another degree or so by 2045, and roughly six to 10 degrees by 2100. Ice coverage across the Great Lakes has more than doubled in the past week due to a weather pattern change that has sent much colder temperatures … Like many others in the Great Lakes region, she also relies on the cold for a living. The Great Lakes depend on ice. Yet we do see substantial ice coverage on the Great Lakes, with large sections of the lake freezing over in the coldest months. “What we’re seeing is some systematic increases in temperature over the long run, putting you closer to the freeze-thaw cycle of water. Some areas can have normal-feeling winters even as the surrounding region does not. It’s actually been kind of a relief. Great Lakes Ice Cover Understanding the major effect of ice on the Great Lakes is crucial because it impacts a range of societal benefits provided by the lakes, from hydropower generation to commercial shipping to the fishing industry. But conditions changed—and never recovered. In Japan, priests at a Shinto temple have kept an almost 600-year record of when their lake freezes all the way across. Leavitt lives for the winter months and ice fishing. The long-term average for ice coverage on all five lakes—Superior, Michigan, Erie, Huron, and Ontario—is 54 percent. A cold snap in the Great Lakes region has spurred the formation of "ice volcanoes" across the lake: conical structures of snow and ice on the lake's … I’m not a scientist one way or another, but it’s obviously warmer.”. The Great Lakes account for about 20 percent of the freshwater on Earth’s surface. The cold air burns in her lungs. For more information on snow in the Great Lakes region, click here. This year we only got below zero once, and we’re used to having 30 below all the time. For a moment, there’s no sound but the faint whisper of wind sweeping over the ice. JANUARY 26, 2020. DECEMBER 27, 2019. MARCH 1, 2020. Ice Year 2020 ArcGIS shapefiles - gis2020.zip (209 MB) Ice Year 2020 ASCII files - grid2020.zip (3.8 MB) Ice Year 2020 Graphic image files - jpg2020.zip (6.8 MB) Back to main Great Lakes Ice Cover Data page All rights reserved. The deep lakes provide massive heat storage and allow the lakes to better resist freezing. However, we did experience one brutal winter in 2013/2014. (Read about how the changing climate is unraveling other ecosystems too.). The lowest ice coverage was in 2002 when ice coverage was only 9.5%. It’s kind of like summer. Unlike most spots on the Great Lakes, Munuscong Lake had thick ice last winter. The Great Lakes Today. JANUARY 8, 2020. The Great Lakes were almost completely frozen over by March 2, with 90.5 per cent of their total surface covered in ice. Estimates range from 7,000 to 32,000 years of age. The lakes are so vast that it is very rare for them to entirely freeze over. Total ice cover on the Great Lakes spanned more than 90 percent, growing so thick in some places that the augers ice anglers used couldn’t reach the water. Usually by this date, about 13 percent of the lake is covered in ice. If the water doesn’t cool down enough during the winter, it gets warmer, faster, in the spring and summer. The planet has warmed by an average of nearly two degrees Fahrenheit (one degree Celsius) since the 1880s. He showed her how to tie a lure, and how to tip the rod up and down to make the lure and minnow glitter in the water’s depths. Since the early 1970s the annual average ice coverage on the great lakes has decreased by an astonishing 71%. Sharma estimates that even if those goals are met, more than 35,000 Northern Hemisphere lakes could lose their consistent winter ice. Ice coverage on the Great Lakes increased to 92.5 percent in February of that year, nearly freezing the lakes over, the NWS stated on its Facebook page. Great Lakes Ice Cover Data - Ice Year 2020. LAKE HURON. Go camping this winter: a beginner's guide. © 1996-2015 National Geographic Society, © 2015- That first rod hangs on the wall of her shanty to this day. Doug Bloomfield and Cooper Nothof brave the waves on the shores of Goderich, Ontario, on Lake Huron. In other words, less ice coverage could mean heavier snow dumpings on land. LAKE HURON. She says it’s not nearly cold enough to put on long pants. The Great Lakes region’s ongoing quest for a new icebreaker was renewed in July when the Senate Commerce Committee included the vessel in its Coast Guard reauthorization legislation for 2020. In that time, the lakes have surpassed 80% ice coverage a mere five times. Kristie Leavitt catches a pike in her homemade pink shanty on Michigan's Upper Peninsula. FEBRUARY 5, 2020. By the end of the century, depending on the strength and aggressiveness of climate actions taken, 27 to 42 fewer days each year could be below freezing, scientists say. One overly warm season isn’t necessarily a harbinger of the inevitable. FEBRUARY 14, 2020. Following the polar vortex in the Midwest this week, Lake Erie has frozen over and nearly half of Michigan's Great Lakes are covered in ice. “Prior to this year, I was kind of like, whatever, what do they call it... it’s cyclical. The last time that Lake Superior almost entirely froze over was in 1979 when the lake reached 94.7% ice coverage. Ontario is losing its consistent ice along the shore, and its water temperatures in the summer are creeping up. Since the early 1970s, the Great Lakes have a long-term average of 55% ice coverage with certain areas reliably freezing over. Bundled in a hot-pink coat that matches her fishing hut and gear, Leavitt hops down from the driver’s seat onto the 18-inch-thick ice that covers this corner of Munuscong Lake, on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. And if you have read our article all about snow, you will know that when the lakes are warmer and water evaporates, the cold wind sweeps in and results in dense lake-effect precipitation. With its iceless water stretching into the distance on a January day, Lake Erie’s Presque Isle State Park exemplifies the region’s warming winters. But the feel of it—the clouds skidding overhead, the water changing colors below her feet, the wind swishing past—got locked into her brain as the essence of winter. The amount of ice cover varies from year to year, as well as how long it remains on the lakes. A woman and her dog walk the muddy beach along unfrozen Lake Michigan, where the 2019-2020 winter ice cover never topped 20 percent. “What’s happening in the Great Lakes region is a small part of a bigger story,” says Lesley Knoll. Leavitt runs Dan’s Resort, a spot with some cabins and a bait shop that caters to ice anglers in the area. Phone: 1-989-584-1211 Email: bill@greatlakessnowplows.com. “Will all this still be around when I’m 70?”. There’s more heat in the air, trapped by the greenhouse gases humans continue to pump into the atmosphere. Ice that day spanned just 17 percent of all of the Great Lakes surface area combined. But what Leavitt was doing that February day was a rare occurrence last winter across the Great Lakes. DECEMBER 28, 2019. The deepest lake in the world, reaching 1,642 m (5,387 ft) depth, becomes … And much of that warming has been concentrated in the winter months, nudging the ice ever closer to its tipping point. The Great Lakes region is on a par with this global trend: Within the basin, air temperatures have risen by an average of 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit compared with the first 60 years of the 1900s. Carson City MI 48811 USA. No additives. Robin Saunders, co-owner of Saunders Sunrise Cabins, sits in the only occupied cabin on her property in Paradise, Michigan, near Lake Superior. The presence of all that water was shaped by natural changes in Earth’s climate through time. 2020 National Geographic Partners, LLC. But overall they are a clear signal of human-caused warming since the industrial revolution. Our products are packed on a guaranteed Net Weight (NW) basis. This is the latest satellite photo of Lake Erie showing the Lake is only about 75 percent frozen over. The last time they came this close was in 1994, when 94 per cent of the lakes' surface was frozen. Read on to learn all about ice, ice baby. But occasionally, the concerns bubble up. (See photos of the vibrant surf scene on the Great Lakes.). Since the late 19th century, lakers have carried bulk cargoes of materials such as limestone, iron ore, grain, coal, or salt from the mines and fields of the upper Great Lakes to the populous industrial areas farther east. Warm mid-February days draw Michiganders outside, but they’re uneasy. No, not completely. Snow and ice also are critical components of local U.S. economies across the region: Winter skiing and snowmobiling account for some $3.5 billion, a recent estimate said. “Our winters are changing drastically," she says. During the winter of 2013-2014, extremely cold temperatures covered the Great Lakes and surrounding states. So is the water, in many places faster than the air. Maybe the summer before was extra warm, zapping enough extra heat into the water that it takes it extra long to cool off and get to the point when it can start to freeze. The six cabins had been booked for this day by snowmobilers. Due to climate change, snow and ice depth have decreased on both the lakes and on land. The age of the Great Lakes is still not definitely determined. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/03/great-lakes-depend-on-winter-ice-low-cover.html, Read about how the changing climate is unraveling other ecosystems too, See photos of the vibrant surf scene on the Great Lakes, nearly 15,000 lakes that used to freeze consistently now ice over intermittently, if at all, 35,000 Northern Hemisphere lakes could lose their consistent winter ice. here. Within her lifetime, warmer winters will likely be more common. 586-337-2153 (Source: Great Lakes MODIS Imagery) By Dan DeRoos | … Sometimes ice forms but doesn’t stick around. The warmer than average winter has led to limited ice cover on the Great Lakes as of January 27, 2020. In Oscoda, Michigan, Elena Mackenzie studies Lake Huron from one of her vacation rental cottages. The city is building a stone wall to protect its shoreline from erosion, high water levels, storms, and crashing waves. “Sometimes I just don’t know,” she says as she sets up to fish, strands of hair wisping around her intent face. Records show that Lake Michigan and Lake Ontario are the only lakes to have resisted freezing over since recording began in the early 1900s. Several surfers ride the ice-free waves of Lake Superior behind him. In the 2015 Paris climate accord, 195 signatories agreed to try to limit planetary warming from surpassing 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (two degrees Celsius) beyond preindustrial levels. The fingerprints of climate change and global warming can be seen in this storm in a surprising way - a warm winter has left the main Great Lakes largely ice free, which churns up more lake … The Great Lakes ice cover was from 15% to 18% this week, compared with about 67% a year ago, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says Why 8 … Part of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula had more freezing days than usual in 2019-2020, but there still wasn’t much ice on the lake. LAKE HURON. Lightly dressed locals gather at the Lake Ontario waterfront. LAKE SUPERIOR. Under the most dire warming scenarios, more than 200,000 lakes could have more ice-free years. Others saw only faint traces of ice around their edges, or froze briefly. LAKE SUPERIOR. The short answer? LAKE ONTARIO. This reduction in ice leaves the lakes uncovered and free to evaporate. DECEMBER 31, 2019. LAKE ONTARIO. When her family would drive from downstate Michigan to visit her grandparents, who owned the lakeside camp at the time, Leavitt would layer on warm clothes, collect a cooler of minnows from the bait shop, and walk out onto the ice as far as she could. The records show cold years with long stretches of early ice, warm years with less. For more GMA, click here: http://gma.yahoo.com/ Some lakes in the region didn’t freeze at all. But last winter was warm, and waves eroded the coastal property, causing thousands of dollars in damage. “At some point these areas that maybe sometimes get ice and sometimes don’t, they’re going to transition to never getting ice,” Knoll says. These vessels are traditionally called boats, although classified as ships.. A tsunami-like wave of ice called an ice heave destroyed a dozen two-story homes in Minnesota. For March 1 … It’s difficult to see the change clearly, in some cases, because there’s huge year-to-year variation, says Jia Wang, a climatologist at NOAA who focuses on ice cover in the Great Lakes region. The shore is usually ice as far as you can see, but you can swim out there right now if you wanted to. The five connected lakes are located on the border between Canada and the United States, in northeastern North America. Save your favourite destinations, activities, and articles to start creating your very own personalized Great Lakes Guide. The navy blue sky begins to lighten. The event once took place on the ice. The lake had one of its least ice covered years ever, with just about 20 percent cover by the end of February. How are they going to adjust? So, although one year may be warmer than the one before, some recent winters were icy cold. The lakes’ geographical footprint is also hard to fathom. FEBRUARY 1, 2020. Great Lakes Foods is located in Menominee, Michigan. Great Lakes Foods is a fast growing full line supplier of wholesale groceries, meat, produce, dairy and frozen, private label, bakery, deli and HBC General Merchandise, for supermarkets and convenience stores. Leavitt is among the nearly two million ice anglers in the United States who look forward all year to the chill of winter. It’s still dark and well below freezing when Kristie Leavitt pulls to a stop and turns off the ATV’s rumbling motor. In November a storm ripped the city’s boardwalk apart. Evaporation can be higher when ice cover is lacking, but it’s not a certainty. Near Cleveland, Ohio, Gracie Ezell, 13, walks along the banks of Lake Erie—in shorts. To view historic ice coverage, click DECEMBER 31, 2019. Surfer Andrew Peterson stands near a surfing spot outside of Duluth, Minnesota. Though they’re hundreds of miles from the oceans, the lakes feel weather influences from both the Pacific and the Atlantic, and incorporate those weather patterns into their own. Over time, and especially as the climate keeps up its inexorable warming, the system could wind itself up more and more—a self-reinforcing loop. In 2013-14, the polar vortex carried frigid air from the Arctic into the continental U.S., and the cold stretched well south of the Great Lakes. How are their lives going to change?”, Leavitt hesitates when she starts to talk about the future. It is likely that the Great Lakes’ ice levels will continue to decrease in the coming years and we could see quite the shift in our usual winter weather. 5.0 cu ft/11 cu ft/18 cu ft 5 cu ft/10 cu ft. Great Lakes Snow & Ice Equipment. But they all canceled because there was not enough snow. 7123 S. Garlock Rd. Natural climate cycles emerge from that record—dwarfed in recent decades by the human-caused warming that has gripped the planet. Normally the Great Lakes freeze, but this year has been ridiculous. “We didn’t think we were going to be able to get out on the water for another day of surfing, but we did.”. These links to the Great Lakes Coastal Forecasting System -- Nowcast/Forecast pages include: current observed ice cover, wind, and air temperature; model-derived ice thickness, ice velocity, vessel icing, surface currents, and water temperature. There’s also more heat in the water, forced in during long, hot summers. The other Great Lakes’ ice seasons are shrinking as well, by an average of about half a day per year. LAKE ERIE. JANUARY 26, 2020. The air is getting warmer. Scientists predict that by 2050, the minimum temperature will stay above freezing for 21 to 25 more days a year in the Great Lakes basin. After the polar bear plunge, participants warm up in a hot tub. Great Lakes Snow & Ice Equipment. Lake Michigan is popping-off. In the Northern Hemisphere, nearly 15,000 lakes that used to freeze consistently now ice over intermittently, if at all. She’d crank her hand-powered auger, cut a channel through the thick ice, and open a portal to the quiet underwater world. Her boots crunch into a thin layer of snow as she begins the ritual of preparing for one of her favorite activities: ice fishing. For perspective: That amount could cover the entire contiguous United States in nearly 10 feet of water. But the lakes now face unprecedented change—and this time, humans are behind it. Carson City MI 48811 USA. Scientists predict that by 2050, the minimum temperature will stay above freezing for 21 to 25 more days a year in the Great Lakes basin. The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the upper mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean through the Saint Lawrence River.In general, they are on or near the Canada–United States border.They are lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario. The extra-tricky part is that the presence and growth of lake ice each winter create a complicated sequence of events. Not quite! Icebreakers are a special class of ship designed to break through ice cover and clear a … Merchants who used Finland’s Tornio River for trade tracked the date the ice broke up each year from 1693 onward. Their combined surfaces span more than 94,000 square miles, about the size of the United Kingdom. She helps manage her family’s tourist cabins and bait shop on the edge of the lake, and the businesses make most of their money during the ice fishing and snowmobiling season. FEBRUARY 15, 2020. Great Lakes Rodent provides Metro Detroit - Southeastern Michigan with live and frozen feeders for reptile breeders, pet stores, and birds of prey. LAKE HURON. Get Great Lakes hidden gems and insider information delivered straight to your inbox! Some factors aren’t so complicated. This project has received funding support from the Government of Ontario. Lake freighters, or lakers, are bulk carrier vessels that ply the Great Lakes of North America. For an up-to-date forecast of the Great Lakes ice coverage, click “Things like ice and water have a long memory,” says Richard Rood, of the University of Michigan, who studies the ways climate change is playing out across the Great Lakes region. A lake expert at the University of Minnesota’s Itasca Biological Station, she studies people’s cultural relationships with frozen lakes. Baikal, Siberia, Russia. LAKE SUPERIOR. That’s warm for us.”. If we have a really warm winter, it feels like something’s wrong.”. Every 20 years we have warm winters,” he says. Only 6.7 percent of the Great Lakes were covered by ice on January 30, which is a remarkable statistic for the middle of winter. “There was ice here in Duluth, and then it blew out,” he says. MARCH 1, 2020. But in parts of Lake Superior, the ice season has been shrinking by an average of almost a day each year for the past few decades. While the movement of glacial ice caused the lakes to form, it is the geology beneath them that gives each its unique shape. “They’re a lot warmer; we’re getting more rain. The persistent cold caused 91 percent of the Great Lakes to be frozen by early March 2014. “Snowmobiling supports our livelihood,” says Saunders. Great Lakes Food 100% natural, fresh frozen smelt are individually quick frozen (IQF), size graded and glazed with fresh potable water. This resulted in late winter of extremely cold temperatures but sunny clear days and nights. Lake Michigan's ice coverage is impressive, as these pictures show, but it's still far from breaking a record. The lowest ice coverage was in 2002 when ice coverage was only 9.5%. This is due to their lower latitudes and large depths. Since the 1970s, ice coverage has generally decreased. With Lake Superior essentially frozen over, that shuts off much of the lake-effect snow, lake effect clouds and lake-effect warming. Now most activities are on the shore because the lake ice is not reliably thick enough. here. Last winter, they barely froze. “We like it when it’s nice like this, but it’s not real winter unless it’s, like, minus 40,” says Kasey Spencer, a lifelong Upper Peninsula resident. For Leavitt, 38, the ice has always been a place to bring her life into focus. On March 6, 92.2% of the Great Lakes were covered with ice. Such support does not indicate endorsement by the Government of Ontario of the contents of this material. Superior also is warming faster than every other large lake on Earth, except Lake Fräcksjön in Sweden. Lake Superior is the second fastest warming lake in the world; its water is warming up more quickly than the air around it. That means the year Leavitt was born, a winter on Superior would have included more than a month more ice cover than it does today. Winter is integral to the culture of the Great Lakes region. Leavitt isn’t alone. Back then, when she was just a kid, it was a simple affair. We haven’t seen the frozen rivers that we saw when I was a kid. Participants come from around the United States—and even from abroad—for the amateur competition on Lake Huron. But this year only 2 percent was frozen. “Lake ice is an amazing indicator of climate,” says Sapna Sharma, a lake ecologist at York University in Toronto. In a typical winter, ice on the Great Lakes starts to form on the lakes in late fall and peaks in March. Temperatures over the last few decades have generally increased, and we are unlikely to see a repeat performance of that deep freeze any time soon. The weekend before Leavitt’s outing, temperatures in the region shot up to 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and ice anglers slogged through slush in T-shirts. The combined measurement of the coasts of the five lakes is thousands of miles longer than either the Pacific or Atlantic coastline of the contiguous U.S. The Bad Beaches, an all-female ice hockey team from Detroit, compete in the 14th annual Labatt Pond Hockey Tournament in St. Ignace, Michigan. (CNN) A winter storm is set to bring ice to portions of the Midwest this weekend, but the Great Lakes remain largely ice-free. A surfer catches a wave on an ice-free Lake Superior outside of Duluth, Minnesota, on the last day of 2019. The old-timer at the bait shop had handed her a rod—a scant three feet long, designed for ice fishing—off the wall the first time she’d gone in there. In Lake Superior, shipping companies have kept records of ice formation and breakup since 1857. Joe Griffin, on a hike in Michigan's Saugatuck State Park, acknowledges that big changes are rippling through the climate and weather system. LAKE ERIE. LAKE HURON. That may sound small and benign, but it masks much more critical change in a place where the line between ice and no ice, snow and rain, can be razor thin. That frigid year, the Great Lakes together reached 92% ice coverage, during which Lake Erie and the Straits of Mackinac (the region between Lakes Michigan and Huron) completely froze over and Lakes Huron and Superior nearly froze over. But increasingly, scientists can pick out patterns in the scattershot records of change from across the Great Lakes, and those patterns are pointing toward a sobering conclusion: The 2019-2020 winter, with its faint traces of ice, is likely just a taste of the future. Water began filling the glacially scoured basins as soon as the ice receded, some 14,000 years ago. In that time, the lakes have surpassed 80% ice coverage a mere five times. There are complicated factors at play controlling the ice on the lake. 7123 S. Garlock Rd. “When it’s cold, we’re miserable—but we’re also really happy, you know? It’s “a clear indication of climate change—and people have recorded it, in some cases, for centuries.”. For example, early and persistent cold air temperatures during the winter of 2013-2014 brought record-high ice cover to most of the Great Lakes, reaching 88 percent coverage. LAKE SUPERIOR. Respite for some, dearly held recreation for others, food, and much more. We don’t wear coats in this kind of weather. In the earliest days of December, the ice looked like it was on track for a “normal” year. She didn’t catch much. Impact to 2020 Great Lakes water Levels Likely Hopefully, the cold doesn’t bother you—because scientists are warning that the frozen lakes will chill the spring. Alex Whitlock heads out to surf on Lake Ontario. Thick slabs of ice around the lake usually protect the shore from storms. And you’re seeing winters getting warmer, shorter—so you just don’t have the amount of time you used to for thermodynamics to do their thing.”. FEBRUARY 8, 2020. FEBRUARY 24, 2020. Ice provides crucial things to everyone who goes out on it. LAKE MICHIGAN. The previous weekend, Leavitt hosted a three-day fishing tournament that drew nearly 700 anglers from all over the state and beyond. “But this year was the first year I’ve noticed our rivers haven’t frozen up for duck hunters. When it’s 24? No preservatives. The lakes are full of water (obviously)… and Ontario is cold during the winters… so the lakes should freeze over in the wintertime, right? Despite a handful of snow and ice storms, it’s been a … Since the early 1970s, the Great Lakes have a long-term average of 55% ice coverage with certain areas reliably freezing over. The world as she sees it is still ice covered; each year is another opportunity for cold. Maybe a bunch of snow falls early in the season, insulating the ice from the top and, counterintuitively, keeping it from growing quickly through the cold temperatures. In Caseville, Michigan, a participant in the polar bear plunge braves the icy Lake Huron waters during the town’s 28th annual Shanty Days festival. FEBRUARY 15, 2020. “How are people going to interact with those water bodies when they never get ice at all? But this is an anomaly. Salt Boxes. JANUARY 6, 2020. Maybe it gets cold enough for ice to form early in the winter—but if a stretch of bitter wind keeps the water’s surface churning, ice will form later. Last winter, ice covered only 19.5 percent of the lakes’ surfaces—a near-record low. What the future holds is both more and less. Culture in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula thrives in the winter months, says Kasey Spencer, manager of the Cozy Corners Bar in Barbeau, Michigan. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts Lake Erie will be 80 percent frozen during the 2020 winter, with the entirety of the Great Lakes 47 percent ice. A single ice fishing tournament can inject hundreds of thousands of dollars into communities. Since water takes longer to warm up or cool down compared to land, the Great Lakes usually begin freezing in late December to early January. The 40-year average ice coverage each winter is about 51% and recently it has been only 40% or less. One of the most recognizable features on a modern map of North America are the five unique shapes of the Great Lakes. For context, ice usually spans 41 percent of the Great Lakes on an average February 14; it can be much higher or lower depending on the year. 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