The following is an excerpt from an excellent article on Madison-based science writer, Erik Ness’ website ‘The Lemonadist.’ The full article is available here. 3/12/24 – by Erik Ness “I think about Ice Nine on a regular basis.” Coming in the middle of a conversation about salt pollution, this surprising detour into literary fiction by …
Yesterday, I rounded the corner of the block in my neighborhood and immediately pulled my dog off the sidewalk. Spread out before us was a carpet of chalky white salt crystals stretching across nearly a dozen square panels of concrete. Why was it there? I’m not sure. We’ve had alarmingly little precipitation this year and …
Tourist towns along the Lake Michigan shoreline love to proclaim the giant body of water “Unsalted and Shark-Free.” The slogan is plastered on t-shirts, magnets and bumper stickers but, according to a study published December 15th in the journal, Limnology and Oceanography Letters, only one of those claims holds water. Combined, the Great Lakes make …
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Many North American lakes are getting saltier, thanks primarily to the road salt used to keep winter roads free of ice and snow. While this salt can keep precipitation from freezing on surfaces, it also ends up flowing into nearby waterways – especially as warmer temperatures melt piles of plowed snow …
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 …
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 …
The above picture shows CFL assistant professor Hilary Dugan and a giant pile of rock salt. It is so much salt. How much? Well, this particular pile belongs to the Jefferson County Highway Department and it’s not uncommon for them to dump literal tons of salt onto county roads and Interstate 94 during an extended …
by Kelly Tyrrell, UW-Madison Communications FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – MADISON, WI – Road salt is making North America’s freshwater lakes saltier, according to a new study published today [April 10, 2017] in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study, conducted by a team of 15 researchers with the Global Lake Ecological Observatory …
Before the ice melts off these lakes here in Madison (we will get ice-off this year, right???), we thought we’d share a report from our senior research technician, Ted Bier, who you may have seen out with facilities manager, Dave Harring, drilling holes in the ice around town this winter as they collected data for …