With Warming Trend, Ice Forms Later in Adirondacks

[dtotire]

Posted: December 25, 2009

MICHAEL VIRTANEN,
Associated Press Writer

ALBANY, N.Y.—Ice is forming this week on picturesque Mirror Lake in the Adirondacks, weeks later than it once did as scientists continue to document a century-long warming trend.
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"The weather is so variable, and the data sets are so few or incomplete, the ice cover is the one thing that stands out above everything else," said Curt Stager, professor of natural sciences at Paul Smith's College. "It's the most obvious, irrefutable sign of climate change in the North Country."

Stager and three other scientists co-authored a recent paper in the Adirondack Journal of Environmental Studies plotting regional climate changes since data collection began in the early 1900s. The data showed ice on Mirror Lake forming 14 or 15 days later and melting three or four days earlier than it did then, consistent with records from several other high-elevation Adirondack lakes.

Colin Beier, a researcher at the Adirondack Ecological Center of the State University College of Environmental Science and Forestry, said climate is affected by geography in the six million acre Adirondack Park, a place with mountains, lake effects, weather from Canada and other local factors.

A separate preliminary trend analysis from 1950 to 2008 found high mean temperatures in the High Peaks area increasing a few degrees while those in the southwestern Adirondacks around West Canada Lakes were decreasing by a similar amount.

"There's a lot of hysteria about climate change right now," Beier said. "It's important for us as scientists to present as sober and clean a picture as possible."


more:
http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2009/12/25/with-warming-trend-ice-forms-later-in-adirondacks.html