By Doug Fletcher,Staff Writer

Environmentalists call it ice-hard evidence of global warming. If the trend continues, they add, it could affect the way we play, what we grow for food and even the wildlife we find in our backyards.

A report called “On Thin Ice: The Melting of an American Pastime” looks at lakes’ ice cover in five cold-weather states: Maine, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New York and Alaska. The analysis found that nearly 80 percent of the lakes and rivers in those five states are thawing earlier each year, sometimes weeks earlier.

In Maine, Damariscotta Lake is clearing 12 days earlier than it has in the past. Moosehead, the state’s largest body of water, is thawing eight days earlier. Rangeley, in the western mountains, sheds its ice an average of five days earlier than its historic average.

And while it wasn’t included in the study, Lake Auburn also shows signs that it is clearing its icy mantle earlier than in the past.

“We’re trending toward warmer springs,” said Mary Jane Dillingham, a spokeswoman for the Auburn Water District.

“It’s always (ice-out) in April now,” Dillingham said, “No more in May.”

“Old Man Winter is becoming ‘old man warmer,'” said Susan Sargent, referring to the trend outlined by the environmental group Clear the Air.

Sargent is Maine representative to the National Environmental Trust. She released the analysis a week ago. When she did, she said, “These days, we are seeing one indication after another that global warming is here. … We have seen our lakes not freezing at all or, if they did freeze, forming only thin layers of ice.”

This past January was Maine’s second warmest on record. Nationally, it was the warmest January in 112 years. NASA declared 2005 the warmest year on record.

Dillingham said the trend toward warmer weather seems solid, but added that “it’s hard to draw any conclusions” about long-term effects.

“We need a lot of data over a long period of time” to offer realistic insights into what the trend means. Still, she noted some signs of the trend are already apparent.

Species that thrive in warmer temperatures are being seen more and more in Maine, she said. Among them: ticks and invasive water plants such as milfoil.

Sargent said this winter’s unusually warm weather could be seen in many ways. Among them:

• Ski areas have worked overtime to make snow and improve slopes left icy and difficult to ski by rain and warm temperatures.

• Snowmobilers put their sleds away after an abbreviated season.

• People who harvest maple syrup in some cases starting tapping their trees in February; the sap run doesn’t usually get under way until March.

• Ice fishing, an $82 million business nationally, has been dismal in Maine with many lakes not freezing until late in January.

• Along the Kennebec River in Randolph, smelt-camp owner Jim Worthington recently had to deal with five weeks with no ice, at what should have been the height of the season.

• At an annual ice harvesting demonstration in South Bristol, the ice was only 7 inches thick this year compared with an average of 12 to 15 inches.

“A lot of people count on winter recreation to put money in their pockets,” Sargent said. The warming “isn’t just costing us something that makes our state special, it’s costing us money, too.”

Clear the Air’s lake-cover analysis studied records kept by the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The information had an average start date of 1920, but some information on certain lakes dates back to the mid-1800s.

Lake Auburn data is available back to 1836, when the ice cleared on May 8. After a late May 14 clearing in 1874, the dates slowly advance toward April. By the late 1800s, May ice-out becomes the exception. The last time the lake cleared in May was May 6, 1972.

“This data mirrors what other scientific studies are saying: Climate change is happening, and while its impacts may be varied, most will have a negative impact on mankind,” Sargent said.

Copy the Story Link