Like most people who choose to live in Wisconsin’s Northwoods, water holds a sacred place in Mary Burns’ life. The Manitowish River runs by the cabin her grandparents once owned – the place she now calls both home and art studio. Water is a common thread that runs through her career as a weaver and …
A new study in the journal Hydrology and Earth System Sciences is linking climate change to yet another environmental impact – longer lasting “dead zones” In lakes. According to the study, warm summer weather is the main driver behind longer periods of anoxia, or oxygen-starved water, in Lake Mendota. Each summer, many lakes settle into …
Last week, the freshwater science community lost a a true giant in our field. David Schindler was a trailblazing scientist and an early enthusiast for whole-lake experiments in the 1970s and 80s that brought issues like acid rain and algae blooms to wide public attention. His life and work leaves a “tremendous impact,” says CFL …
When an invasive species overruns an ecosystem, it is often assumed that the organism recently arrived at its new home and rapidly took over. But a report published in the journal, BioScience, says that many new arrivals aren’t nearly as impatient as this narrative implies. In fact, it is not uncommon for “sleeper populations” of …
The Antarctic toothfish (Dissostichus mawsoni) is a large, nearly six-foot long resident of Earth’s very southernmost waters. It’s range begins at the 60th parallel, which is basically the beginning of the Southern Ocean which means, as the fish’s name might suggest, that it inhabits some of the coldest waters in the world right along the …
[UPDATED 12/20/22] – With folks in the Midwest staring down a long span of below frigid weather (and a blizzard warning!), icy and snow-covered surfaces are becoming the norm. While we totally understand the desire to reach for a big bag of rock salt, we are also concerned about the troubling trend of our lakes …
This year marks the second season for our ambitious winter limnology experiment up in Vilas County. In case you missed our initial post about why in the world someone would spend all winter plowing a frozen bog every time it snowed, here’s a link to the full story. The short version is this: As climate …
The folks at Water@UW, in collaboration with Humanities Exchange Fellow Julia Buskirk, are announcing a unique new grant aimed at introducing UW undergraduate art students to UW System scientists for a series of art-science partnerships. Called “Flow,” the art microgrant project will provide funding to ten undergraduate artists to produce art in partnership with water …
Winter in the colder climes of North America means a lot of things – frozen lakes, white blankets of snow and, far too often, the crunch of salt crystals underfoot. While we use salt to keep roads, parking lots and sidewalks ice-free, those leftover piles of undissolved crystals mean far too much salt was put …
For those of us lucky enough to live where our lakes freeze in the winter, one of the true joys of the season is getting out on the ice. Suddenly, a space that was only available for the boat owners among us becomes available to anyone who lives near its shores. This winter, in particular, …