A warm start to the winter season has left the Great Lakes virtually ice-free and with their lowest ice cover to kick off a new year in at least 50 years.
On New Year’s Day, only 0.35% of the Great Lakes were covered in ice, the lowest on record for the date, and well below the historical average of nearly 10% for this point in winter, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL).
This year’s missing ice in the Great Lakes adds to a growing trend of winter ailments plaguing the US, from dwindling snowpacks in the West to an ongoing snow drought in the Northeast, all becoming more common due to warming temperatures from the climate crisis.
Weird, seems like maybe we’ve destroyed the climate. Who could have predicted this?
About the second coming:
The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.
It’s low key why a lot if people don’t want to do anything about it, they see it as the second coming of Christ
The rich and corporations are killing our planet. They don’t care if we die and people would rather save a hundred bucks on taxes than vote in their best interest.
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. If there was a viable green alternative to transportation granted to us by our overlords, I’m sure most people would choose it.
You mean like taking a bike or walking? Let’s not be silly here, I live in a small town right outside a big city. There is a train in my town that goes into the city, it’s highly walkable, there are buses that run within a block of my house into the city. . .and people still drive everywhere.
We’re all to blame for this. While I think the best way to tackle it is to put the burden on the corporations, as it’s much easier to centralize the changes, trying to pretend like the individual has no say in this is the same blame shift of corporations trying to claim it’s the individual who needs to change. Everyone wants it to be convenient and cheap and fast. We all need to shift how we think about things.
Scientists 40 years ago - “The Earth is going to start warming and it’s gonna cause issues”
40 years later
Issues - Exist
The media - “wHaT iS hApPeNiNg!?!?!?!?”
Fellas, it’s been good to know ya.
Next year, we’ll probably see catastrophic algal blooms, as the cold at least killed off a lot of it. Next year, it will have a massive head start. Microcystins and hypoxic water will kill wildlife and poison the drinking water.
I can’t pretend to predict the future but I imagine scientists everywhere are in a perpetual state of “oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck.” Waiting to see what happens and how bad it’s gonna be.
It’s gonna be bad. Real bad
We reap what we sow and we been sowing this for decades.
This current melt is also due to localized factors, like the El Nino event we are going through, making the climate-change-induced ice reduction greatly exacerbated. Ice on the Great Lakes has been declining for 50 years.
Just as no Congressperson should be bringing in snow alls to refute climate change, we should also keep in mind that weather and climate are vastly different things.
Remember to bring this up in a couple years when Republicans are talking about how the ice is back so climate change isn’t real.
