Amazingly, it took the NY Times 12 paragraphs to get to the dread “global warming” phrase (imagine it as Neal Boortz says it.)
Family Science Project Yields Surprising Data About a Siberian Lake
In 1945, when Stalin ruled the Soviet Union, Mikhail M. Kozhov began keeping track of what was happening under the surface of Lake Baikal, the ancient Siberian lake that is the deepest and largest body of fresh water on earth.
Every week to 10 days, by boat in summer and over the ice in winter, he crossed the lake to a spot about a mile and a half from Bolshie Koty, a small village in the piney woods on Baikal’s northwest shore. There, Dr. Kozhov, a professor at Irkutsk State University, would record water temperature and clarity and track the plant and animal plankton species as deep as 2,400 feet
And the family all joined in! Cool!
Although it is known that warming is more intense at high latitudes, as in the Baikal area, and that water is warming in other major lakes, including Lake Tahoe in Nevada and Lake Tanganyika in central Africa, many scientists had thought that Lake Baikal’s enormous volume and unusual water circulation patterns would buffer the effects of global warming.
Instead, the researchers report, surface waters in Lake Baikal are warming quickly, on average by about 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit every decade. At a depth of about 75 feet, the increase is about 0.2 degrees per decade, they say, enough to jeopardize species “unable to adapt evolutionarily or behaviorally.â€
Over the last 137 years, the researchers say, the ice-free season has lengthened by more than two weeks, primarily because ice forms later in the year. The database, including data on chlorophyll that the family started collecting in 1979, suggest that the “growing season†for plankton and algae has lengthened in the lake. Chlorophyll levels have tripled since measurement began, the researchers said.
137 years. What happened 137 years ago? The Little Ice Age was ending. But, you know Man has to be the cause, right? All those evil molecules of CO2 we were putting out from our SUVs in 1889 did it.
Perhaps the mostly natural temperature rises have made a difference in the lake temps. But, what is missing is the massive pollution put into the lake under Soviet communism. Perhaps the paper and pulp mill built in 1966 on Lake Baikal’s shores could be effecting the temps.
Or, maybe it could have something to do with Lake Baikal being situated on the Baikal Rift Zone, which not only created the lake, but is still active, widening about 2-3 centimeters per year. It is the deepest continental rift on Earth, and creates hot springs and earthquakes. It is also the deepest on Earth.
It really is a marvelous place. Would love to see it one day. But, is it really glooooobal warming as caused by those humans, or simply a combination of pollution, natural warming, and natural underground forces?
