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Ice coverage on the Great Lakes reaches record low; earliest spring conditions on record. [1]

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Date: 2023-02-26  

Status of Spring update: Spring leaf out has arrived in New York City, 32 days ahead of normal (period of 1991-2020). Spring leaf is earliest on record in parts of the SE, southern MW, and mid-Atlantic, latest on record in parts of AZ. Follow spring at http://usanpn.org/news/spring

In some areas of the United States, the earliest conditions of spring have smashed the record for this time of year. Unsurprisingly, the exact temperatures had interfered with the freezing of the Great Lakes, where ice coverage for this time of year has been at a record low since 1978 when NOAA first began to measure the ice.

According to NOAA, only seven percent of the Great Lakes surface area was frozen compared to 35-40 percent for this time in previous years.

Air temperatures are the main factor affecting ice cover on the Great Lakes, and a warmer than average January contributed to the lack of ice. According to the U.S. National Ice Center, each of the five lakes experienced warmer than average air temperatures in January. In addition, it was an especially warm January across the contiguous U.S.: The average temperature was 35.2 degrees F (5.1 degrees above average) according to NOAA, and January 2023 Earth’s seventh-warmest January on record. Although there is year-to-year variability in the ice cover of the lakes, NOAA research has found that in recent years ice cover is in a downward trend. An analysis led by Jia Wang, an ice climatologist at NOAA's GLERL, found significant declines in average ice cover of the Great Lakes between 1973 and 2017. During the winter period of those 44 years, which runs from December 1 to April 30, average ice cover on the Great Lakes declined about 70 percent. Ice cover protects the shoreline of lakes – without it, high waves can scour the coastline and cause severe flooding. Low ice coverage on the lakes can be a set up for large severe “lake effect” snow storms, says Ayumi Fujisaki-Manome, a researcher at NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research at the University of Michigan. “The moisture and heat from the lake surface water are absorbed into the atmosphere by storm systems, and then fall back to the ground as snow in the winter. When ice is not present, we can end up with big snow storms like those that hit Buffalo, New York in December. Although human-caused warming plays a role in this decline, other key factors contributing to reduced ice loss are long-term patterns of climate variability over the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Four patterns of climate variability are contributing to ice cover changes: the North Atlantic Oscillation, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation.

In The Guardian, Oliver Milman and Aliya Uteuova write about the extraordinary warmth in parts of the eastern, southeastern, and midwestern United States.

Winter has barely registered for millions of people in the US north-east, with states across the New England region all experiencing their warmest January in the 155-year national record. New York City, which experienced more lightning strikes than snowfall in a balmy month, notched an average temperature 10F higher than the long-term average. The Great Lakes, meanwhile, have had a record-low amount of ice coverage during their usual February peak. The procession of warm days has coaxed flowers from plants, with thousands of citizen observers reporting early budding in numerous locations to the National Phenology Network, a coalition of academics, government agencies and volunteers. Volunteers on the ground have noted instances of blooming over the past 15 years, while the longer 40-year record comes from a model of spring-like conditions devised by the network. This year, blooms have already been emerging from common lilacs in Pennsylvania, eastern redbuds in Virginia, tulip trees and red maples in North Carolina, and daffodils and violets in New York City, observers have told the network. Perhaps the most famous symbol of spring in the US, the cherry blossoms found in the heart of Washington DC, have started to bud, too, and could break a three-decade record for early blossoming, according to the National Park Service. The warm winter, and the galloping arrival of spring-like weather, is part of a longer-term trend of milder winters and scrambled seasons due to the heating of the planet caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Crimmins said her network of observers have voiced “surprise, concern and anxiety” over another early spring, which follows a string of similar early onsets over the past decade or so. “This year the US has clearly been chopped in half and the eastern half is so much further ahead of schedule in terms of spring,” she said. “Almost everyone I speak to about this has this existential anxiety that we are seeing climate change playing out in real time.”

Spring certainly feels like it has arrived in my neck of the woods. Daffodils are blooming, and flowering trees and leaves are beginning to open in the southern Appalachians. I see bugs too.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/26/2155112/-Ice-coverage-on-the-Great-Lakes-reaches-record-low-earliest-spring-conditions-on-record

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