How did we miss this excellent feature on Lake Mendota and the CFL? We have no idea, but better late than never – enjoy!
By: Masarah Van Eyck
©UW-Madison University Communications
Photo by: Jeff Miller
From the window of his second-story office overlooking Lake Mendota, Steve Carpenter can see the UW rowing team running drills. On a warmer day, he might glimpse yellow-hulled “tech” boats, piloted by amateur sailors, lurching around the buoys. And on an early autumn morning, a lone paddler might suggest the image of a traveller from long ago, navigating the waters in a birchbark canoe.
Like all lakes, this one holds the past, present and even the future in its depths.
“Lakes reflect the land around them,” Carpenter says. “They also reflect the ways that humans use that land, and the ways we use the water.”
Often called “the most studied lake in the world,” Mendota is the birthplace of the field of limnology, the scientific study of inland waters. Thanks to a trove of long-term data gathered over more than 100 years by UW scientists like Steve Carpenter, the connection between Mendota and the humans who have interacted with it over time is unusually well understood.
This data offers a glimpse of the lake’s future — one that Carpenter and his colleagues are eager for us to realize that we are responsible for writing. Continue reading here –>