As 2024 Begins, Great Lakes Ice Cover Lowest In At Least 50 Years

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=1200
Average ice cover in the Great Lakes since 1973, when NOAA started its tracking. The black line at the bottom shows this year’s ice cover. (NOAA)

The Great Lakes had the smallest amount of ice cover this New Year’s Day in at least the past 50 years and are on track to see less than the seasonal average this winter, according to government data. The decline comes during a five-decade drop in ice cover that experts say is due in part to human-caused climate change.

“It’s an extreme number,” said James Kessler, a physical scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL). “That said, it is early in the season, and there is year-to-year variability. But on average, we are seeing less ice cover and shorter seasons.”

On the first of the year, only 0.35 percent of the Great Lakes was under ice, below the roughly 9 percent that on average at this point in the winter, according to data from GLERL. On New Year’s Day 2023, more than 4 percent of the Great Lakes was covered in ice, while 2.35 percent was covered in ice on Jan. 1, 2022.

Kessler cautioned that while Monday’s low is remarkable, one-day lows are not as statistically significant as month-long lows. He added that maximum ice cover, or the point in the winter with the highest percentage of the Great Lakes with ice coverage, usually occurs in February and March, and that January is early in the season. (In 2023, the Great Lakes’ ice cover hit a record mid-February low.)

EDIT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/01/02/great-lakes-ice-cover-low/