Great Lakes hit all-time low for winter ice coverage – Kingston | 24CA News
According to knowledge launched Monday by the U.S. based mostly National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the present ice protection on the Great Lakes is at a file low.
It’s data that Queen’s University lake biology professor John Smol could be very conscious of.
“Sometimes I fear we’re sleepwalking to disaster,” stated Smol.
Smol says the decline in ice protection over previous a long time comes down to 1 major contributing issue.
“We all know what the cause is, it’s human-induced climate change,” Smol advised Global Kingston.
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The NOAA knowledge reveals that mid-February to mid-March is usually when ice protection is at its peak.
In the case of the Great Lakes, that often ranges between 30 and 40 per cent of the water’s floor. As of Monday it is just 7 per cent.
Smol says the ramifications are critical.
“The ice is also a cover for evaporation, and if you have less ice as we do now, there’s more opportunity for evaporation. That gets more water going into the atmosphere,” stated Smol.
The change in ice protection additionally contributes to a few of the snap storms which have hammered Southern Ontario this winter.
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Frontenac Islands Mayor Judy Greenwood-Speers grew up on Wolfe Island.
“When I was young, the ice was a lifeline for the island all winter long,” stated Greenwood-Speers.
The ice can be used as a street for islanders to get to get to Kingston.
“Greenwood-Speers says the ice hasn’t been there to help a street of that sort for a few years.
The Frontenac Islands mayor says she misplaced a good friend to the altering ice circumstances in 1984.
“That was the year that I lost Colleen Frasso and her kids, and that’s when we collectively decided no more driving the ice,” she recalled.
Smol says lowering carbon emissions must be taken severely to sluggish local weather change impacts.
The present local weather change impression for the Great Lakes, in line with Smol, is that winter will contain much less ice and extra snow.
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
