Over the last two centuries, lakes around the world, including those in Maine, have seen decreases in the duration of winter ice cover. As global change leads to increasing annual temperatures, the length of lake ice cover each year has been slowly declining and is expected to continue to decline. The easiest way to quantify the duration of ice cover on a lake is to record the first day each year in the spring where the lake is free of ice. This day is referred to as the lake’s ice-out day for that year. There exist large amounts of historical ice-out data. There are eight Maine lakes with consistent ice-out records that extend back from before 1880 to the present day.
This project is a painted grid, with each column representing a different lake, and each row representing a year, with the grid moving forward in time from top to bottom. Each point on the grid has been assigned one of seven colors, according to the ice-out day for that year, when compared to the average pre-1900 ice-out day for that lake. Darker red colors represent years with earlier thaws, and darker blue colors represent years with later thaws, creating a visual gradient from blue to red, with white representing middling values. Years with no data are marked in black. While many people who interact with lake ice in the winter, such as ice fisherman, may be familiar with year-by-year ups and downs, this project aims to fully represent the long-term changes to lake ice in Maine.
Data Sources:
https://me.water.usgs.gov/reports/OFR02-34.pdfhttps://www.maine.gov/dacf/parks/water_activities/boating/ice_out_dates.shtml
