Great Lakes Ice Coverage at Record-Breaking Lows

Published: Sunday, January 23, 2022 12:00 pm
By: Annastasia Artzer

While January has been incredibly cold, with temperatures in the southern-most part of the Great Lakes reaching single digits, this has had little effect on the Great Lakes ice cover. Temperatures in December were more than 7 degrees warmer than average, resulting in record-low ice coverage. According to a tweet from the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) on January 14th, ice coverage was only 11.3%. Ice cover is incredibly variable from one year to the next, but on average 53% of the lake waters freeze—and they're currently forecasted to only reach 12.3% in total. This total will be the lowest since the winter of 2002, where the total ice coverage was 12%.

Most concerning of all is the northernmost Great Lake, Lake Superior, which typically averages 64% ice cover. This year's forecast expects this largest of the Great Lakes to only reach 8.5%.

Among the impacts these changes have on winter recreation (i.e. ice fishing, ice sailing, and ice golf), low ice cover also severely impacts the sensitive Great Lakes ecosystem. In an interview with Michigan NPR, James Kessler, a scientist at the NOAA GLERL, said that "certain microorganisms and fish species, actually they require ice cover for their spawning cycles, so when there's not ice, these species are hurting." Among these species affected are whitefish, who rely on ie cover to protect spawning beds from winter storms.

On land, this warmer-than-usual Great Lakes winter will fuel more and heavier spring rains, which will be potentially harmful to local agriculture. Warmer lakes will also continue to push lake-effect snow into next month. "February will be the coldest month of our winter," says Jia Wang, an ice climatologist for the NOAA GLERL, based in Ann Arbor. "The lake-effect snow will come."

tags: Great Lakes