I’m back – only to find my internet had slowed to a crawl, even as I tried to dig out of an enormous pile of emails. New modem fixed the problem.
As to my research retreat last week, I can report that Lake Superior is now, in fact, as warm as they say.
Yay, back to crockin’.
So, it seems that the “start of summer stratification” is getting a bit earlier on average, meaning that the big lake is warming up earlier in the summer season? I can imagine that the increased Great Lake temps would change the region’s lake effect rain and snow.
it affects the moment when temps even out from top to bottom in the lake. In summer, and winter, the lake is stratified by temperature, ie there is little communication between layers. Turnover is important for nutrient and energy flow in the system, and when it occurs has a bearing on weather systems, such as the big storms that come in the fall when the water gives up its summer heat.
Speaking as an old Great Lakes deckhand….
Lake Superior, it is said, never gives up her dead, when the gales of november come early.
Fair play to you, Peter. Just out for a couple of days and back on the ball again. Cheers.