A warm start to the winter season has left the Great Lakes virtually ice-free and with their lowest ice cover to kick off a new year in at least 50 years.
On New Year’s Day, only 0.35% of the Great Lakes were covered in ice, the lowest on record for the date, and well below the historical average of nearly 10% for this point in winter, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL).
This year’s missing ice in the Great Lakes adds to a growing trend of winter ailments plaguing the US, from dwindling snowpacks in the West to an ongoing snow drought in the Northeast, all becoming more common due to warming temperatures from the climate crisis.
I can’t pretend to predict the future but I imagine scientists everywhere are in a perpetual state of “oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck.” Waiting to see what happens and how bad it’s gonna be.
It’s gonna be bad. Real bad
We reap what we sow and we been sowing this for decades.
This current melt is also due to localized factors, like the El Nino event we are going through, making the climate-change-induced ice reduction greatly exacerbated. Ice on the Great Lakes has been declining for 50 years.
Just as no Congressperson should be bringing in snow alls to refute climate change, we should also keep in mind that weather and climate are vastly different things.
Remember to bring this up in a couple years when Republicans are talking about how the ice is back so climate change isn’t real.