Global warming brings earlier spring thaw to Great Lakes

On 56 of the lakes the spring thaw showed an earlier trend, occurring two days sooner each decade on average. Though the thaw has been happening ever earlier since 1846, the calculations show the rate of change is now more than three times as fast as it was before 1975. Benson says the date of ice break-up has “marched northward 100 kilometres per decade” in that time.

“What’s happening around us is big enough and so far out of our control that it is affecting the whole Great Lakes region,” says team member John Magnuson.

New Scientist