Last week, John Magnuson, director emeritus of the Center for Limnology, spoke at our weekly Wednesday seminar about lake ice trends in our warming world. In short, the onset and duration of lake ice cover in the northern hemisphere looks a lot like the infamous “hockey stick” showing the average rise in global temperature, except …
Ted Bier, our senior research specialist for the Long-Term Ecological Research program, was recently photographed on Lake Monona holding this massive chunk of ice in front of the Madison skyline. That picture led to the following story on The Capital Times website: How thick is the ice on Madison’s lakes? Researcher Ted Bier almost didn’t …
Sure it’s been a long winter, but we were surprised when all that lake ice recently got political here in Wisconsin. In January, State representative Mark Pocan told the legislature that, “Ice fishermen are already noticing fewer days they can be out on our ice covered lakes.” Perhaps because the statement was so counter to current …
Remember the polar vortex? It was just a vague memory before we stumbled across the following post from our archives. Perhaps we had blocked out memories of the winter of subzero temps cold enough to close down schools strictly on a windchill basis. But one thing is certain – it was a good year for …
Yesterday, we gathered at the upstairs windows here in the office and watched as spring thunderstorms blew in across Lake Medota and set a giant slab of ice drifting past Hasler Lab. The sheet of ice appeared to be roughly a quarter the size of the lake itself. If was truly astonishing, like observing some …
Following up on our posts of Lake Mendota freezing while Monona flirted with open water, Ted Bier, the Long-Term Ecological Research team’s senior research specialist, sent in this photo. It shows Ted a few winters back drilling a hole through twenty inches of ice on Lake Monona, while open water laps at the edge in …
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 …