Posted on 03/22/2002 7:18:56 AM PST by cogitator
New York Lakes Fail to Freeze
BUFFALO, New York, March 21, 2002 (ENS) - Several lakes in upstate New York that have frozen every winter for the past three decades broke their perfect record this year, and remained ice free.
In his 30 years of studying freeze thaw cycles of lakes in New York state, Dr. Kenton Stewart had never seen some lakes in his lake ice network stay unfrozen for an entire winter - until this winter ended on Wednesday.
"The majority of the lakes in the state still froze, but a surprising number that developed ice covers in previous winters, had only a partial skim of ice this winter, or did not freeze at all," said Stewart, professor emeritus of biological sciences at the University at Buffalo.
Stewart, who studies the freeze thaw cycles of more than 250 lakes in New York state, said lakes that did not freeze this winter include some that did so during an El Niño year. Those that did freeze did so one to three weeks later than usual.
Some lakes have already thawed and Stewart expects others to lose their ice about two to three weeks earlier than normal. He cautioned that because of the temperature gradient across the state, there is no average freeze up or break up date that would hold true for the entire state.
"One surprising thing about the unusually mild winter is that while it was as mild as some of the strong El Niño events that we've seen, it was not associated with an El Niño event in the Pacific Ocean that can have an atmospheric influence," said Stewart. "It also was not foreseen by the Climate Prediction Center of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency."
As of last November, the Climate Prediction Center was predicting a colder than normal winter for the Northeast and the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes areas, Stewart said.
Among the New York lakes that failed to freeze this winter were:
- Irondequoit Bay in Rochester
- Hemlock and Canadice lakes located south of Rochester
- Cross Lake located west of Syracuse
- Onondaga Lake in Syracuse [note: one of the most polluted urban bodies of water in the United States]
- Otisco Lake located west of Syracuse
- Big Green Lake in Green Lake State Park located east of Syracuse
- Ashokan and other water supply reservoirs north of New York City
In September 2000, Stewart and other lake ice scientists from around the world published a paper in the journal "Science" in which they drew the first global picture of trends in the formation and dissolution of ice on lakes and rivers in the Northern Hemisphere during the past 150 years.
Stewart and his coauthors hypothesize that changes in lake ice dates can warn of climate change.
"The current season seems to reinforce that point, and it demonstrates how unexpected some freeze thaw events may be," he said.
Gotta run... Goin to warm, sunny FLA.
Its bloody cold in Buffalo right now...
I doubt it cost that much. He probably makes daily phone calls from his nice warm office to someone who lives by the lake and asks "is there ice on the lake today?"
WIMP!
Yes it is. I remember walking through Onondaga Lake Park many years ago, and watching with a mixture of horror and amusement as a guy was fishing out of the lake and cleaning and grilling his catch on the spot. This within twenty feet of a sign explicitly warning not to do that... ;)
Why is it being held in Syracuse? And why at 10 pm? The latter is probably to accomodate the left coasters, but that's pretty late to be starting a game.
I agree with you on the wind and damage...and the ice.....BURRRRRRRRRRRRR
Good thing we are hearty stock here :>)
Probably with 28000 in attendances at $80 a ticket, that can fill the NCAA coffers with some serious jack. I wnet to the 1983 regional there (Michael Jordan's last college game) and SU puts on a good presentation. Actually I believe the Ky-Md is at 7:30 and the UConn-SIU game is at 10.
So thaaaaat's where they've been hiding the Psychic Friends Network people.
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