Lake Tahoe Warming - Likely Connection To Global Trend - LA Times

[hatrack]

"Lake Tahoe is getting warmer and the likely cause is global warming, making it the largest lake in North America where rising temperatures have been linked to climate change, according to a study by UC Davis researchers. Although the water temperature has increased by less than 1 degree Fahrenheit in three decades, scientists said, it was enough to significantly affect lake currents and to complicate the billion-dollar effort to preserve the clarity of the lake's cobalt-blue waters.

The findings suggest that by altering the currents, the warming trend may promote algae formation near Tahoe's surface and help make those waters more opaque — a condition long blamed on a combination of air and water pollution from runoff, chimney smoke and auto emissions.

Analyzing 33 years of monitoring data, a team of UC Davis scientists found that the warming trend was evident in surface-level water as well as more than 400 meters beneath the surface. They determined that the change probably is stemming from a slight uptick in temperatures around the world, ruling out other factors such as increased geothermal heat from the earth beneath the lakebed.

"Tahoe is so large, it takes a lot to change it," said Geoffrey Schladow, the director of the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center and one of the authors of the study, which has been submitted for publication in the scientific journal Climatic Change. "The temperature at the bottom has changed by nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit, and that is greater than at any other time in recorded history."

EDIT

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tahoe21dec21,1,4563309.story?coll=la-headlines-california

[izzie]

1. Do not tell Rush. It would up-set him

[Xithras]

2. Or not

Tahoe IS warming, but I don't know that I believe the global warming bit. Tahoe today takes in a lot of pollution...dirt runoff from development, salts from the roads, airborn pollution from auto exhaust settling on the lake fuel and oil spills from boats and other watercraft that use the lake for recreation...the lake is no longer the crystal clear blue jewel of the Sierra's that it once was, and global warming has nothing to do with it.

Most of us learned in junior high science class that the darker something is, the more energy it absorbs from light. Tahoe is warming today because its water is darker than at any other time in its history, and the lake is absorbing more solar heat as a result.

Nowhere does the article actually give any evidence, even circumstantial, to back up the claims that global warming is responsible for the lake warming. The theory is thrown into even more doubt when you realize that the average air temperatures for the Sierra's haven't even increased a degree yet...so where was this "heat" supposed to have come from?

I hate to say it, but people today are too willing to attribute problems to global warming rather than confront the real reasons for their problems...human overdevelopment. These guys just made it that much harder for those people trying to protect Tahoe. The next time someone tries to pass an ordinance to reduce runoff or protect the lake, they'll be met by a bunch of protesters saying "It's not our development that's hurting the lake, it's global warming!" Attributing everything to global warming does a real disservice to those who are trying to solve the real problems that are driving various local environmental issues.