A sure sign of global warming?

Great lakes are on the verge of record ice cover. Now at 87%The heat is hiding in Lake Ontario which is only at 37%.  Something about surface to volume ratio. 

The total ice cover on the Great Lakes continued to increase in the past seven days. At the rate the ice is growing, ice cover would reach record levels sometime next week.

We also had a mostly clear day Tuesday February 11, 2014. The high resolution satellite was able to generate some fascinating images.

The total ice cover on the entire Great Lakes system is reported at 87.3 percent today, according to the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory(GLERL). The ice cover is up from 77 percent covered seven days ago.

The highest recorded total ice cover on the Great Lakes is 94.7 percent back on February 19, 1979. It should be emphasized that the most modern data set only goes back to 1973.

So the entire Great Lakes system has gone from 77 percent ice covered last week to 87 percent ice covered today. At that rate of increase, the Great Lakes would set a new modern day record for ice cover sometime next week.

Here's a rundown of all the individual lakes ice growth this week:

Lake Superior

Lake Superior is almost frozen over, but not completely as of this morning. Lake Superior is now covered 95.3 percent with ice. Last week at this time it was 92 percent covered. At this pace it could get to 100 percent ice covered before the warm-up hits Wednesday of next week. In the modern day data set, Lake Superior was 100 percent ice covered on March 3, 1996.

The high resolution satellite image is even showing a thickness to the southern edge of the ice.

Lake Michigan

The ice on Lake Michigan grew the most in the past seven days, adding an impressive 29 percent ice. Lake Michigan is now rated as 80 percent ice covered. The highest ice cover in recent times is 93.1 percent on February 9, 1977. At this rate of ice growth, Lake Michigan could set its individual lake record on ice also next week.

Lake Huron

Lake Huron is also almost entirely frozen. Lake Huron is covered 94.7 percent in ice. Last week at this time, Huron was covered 85 percent with ice. The record ice cover is 98.3 percent on February 9, 1994. Lake Huron could reach that any day now.

Lake St. Clair

Lake St. Clair is small enough that it is almost entirely ice covered, with 99 percent covered in ice as of today.

Lake Erie

Lake Erie is 95.9 percent ice covered, which is up from 93.9 percent ice covered this time last week. You can see that the last few percentage points heading toward 100 percent ice cover take the longest time. Lake Erie has been completely covered in ice three years since 1973. 1978, 1979, and 1996 were ice filled years for Lake Erie.

Lake Ontario

Lake Ontario is still only 32 percent ice covered, and has only added one-half of one percent of ice cover in the last week. This lack of ice cover in comparison to the other lakes is a mystery to some. I'll solve that mystery. According to George Leshkevich, physical scientist and Great Lakes ice expert at NOAA's GLERL, Lake Ontario has a larger amount of heat storage than it has heat loss. Lake Ontario appears as the smallest Great Lake when looked at from above. But Lake Ontario has three times the volume of water of Lake Erie. Leshkevich says the heat is lost through the surface area, which is small on Lake Ontario. Lake Superior, on the other hand, is much deeper with much more volume, but also has a large surface area for heat loss. Leshkevich also points toward the large volume of relatively warmer moving water that enters Lake Ontario through the Niagara Falls. This rapid water flow certainly keeps some ice from forming.

Will record ice be reached

The temperatures over all of the Great Lakes are going to stay below freezing until next Tuesday. So ice cover will continue to increase from now through next Tuesday. Record ice better be reached by Tuesday, or it may fall short. A several day significant warm-up will move into the Great Lakes from next Wednesday through next Friday. Some ice could even be taken away during that period. After that warm-up another round of below freezing temperatures will move in, but it won't be as cold as it has been recently. Also, we are approaching March and occasional days above freezing will be more common.

So if you are hoping to live through historic ice cover, it will probably have to happen before next Wednesday.

In my mind, if we are going to come this far, we might as well set a new record.

But then let's get on to spring.

http://www.mlive.com/weather/index.ssf/2014/02/great_lakes_ice_cover_update_t.html