Ice on the River
I have lived next to the Saint Clair River in Michigan for the last 27 years and I have been fascinated by the recent changes in water levels. This year, the water level here in town is only about a foot below the boardwalk. I have mentioned this in a previous blog post, but this level has alarmed me since for the previous 25 years, and until last year, the water level of the river was several feet lower. Not just inches lower, several feet lower. I started wondering what causes this fluctuation (aside from the larger concern of global warming) and being a “slightly informed” geology junkie, I jumped on a couple of websites to explore this phenomenon. One large factor that affects the water level in the lakes is apparently how much ice forms on the lakes in the winter, which cuts down on natural evaporation. This, along with precipitation and run-off from land, is one of the major contributing factors to the water level. I decided to peruse the NOAA website (National Oceanic