University of Wisconsin–Madison

Tag: ice cover

Ice Data from Early “Citizen Scientists” Confirms Warming Since Industrial Revolution

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: MADISON, WI — In 1442, fifty years before Columbus “sailed the ocean blue,” Shinto priests in Japan began keeping records of the annual freeze dates of a nearby lake. Along a Finnish river, starting in 1693, local merchants recorded the date the ice broke up each spring. These two observations are the …

Ice is Nice: Three Perks to the Polar Vortex

We get it. It is cold. Face (and mind) numbingly cold. But that’s not an “all bad” thing. There’s a lot to like about a real winter. And it begins with ice. Here are three things to celebrate during the winter that brought “polar vortex” into our vocabulary! 1. Ice Caves For the first time …

CSI: Lake Monona Edition – Open Water in Negative Temps?

Over here at the CFL, all the talk has been about the ice covering Lake Mendota. That’s all well and good, but it’s diverted attention from something happening on the other side of the isthmus – Lake Monona is refusing to freeze. UPDATE: Matt Schwei reports that, ow that the temps have moved to being …

Another Year, Another Late Freeze on Lake Mendota

The view from Hasler Lab on Monday was one of windswept waves crashing into the ice-covered rocks of Lake Mendota’s southern shoreline. Not even a rim of pancake ice to slow their roll. Today the lake is, well, a little calmer. But out in the middle of Madison’s main aquatic feature, the dark blue of …