A new report shows Lake Tahoe had a record-setting year last year and not in a good way – water temperature is up and clarity is down.
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The air temperature at the lake is becoming steadily hotter too.
While precipitation was near average, only 6.5 percent of it fell as snow in 2015, the lowest amount on record.
“While Lake Tahoe is unique, the forces and processes that shape it are the same as those acting in most natural ecosystems”, wrote TERC in the report. “As such, Lake Tahoe is an indicator for other systems both in the western USA and worldwide”. “The lake would probably be 10 feet lower than it is now”, said Bernardo. Roughly 3 million people visit each year. The scientists said the temperature difference seems slight, but it has surged in last about 15 years, and this is a big reason to worry. “We need to improve our efforts”.
Scientists at the University of California Davis’ Tahoe Environmental Research Center said Lake Tahoe’s waters in the past four years have been warming at 15 times their historic average. But the trend of the last few years has been stunning. However, it was still more than 9 feet greater than the lowest recorded average of 64.1 feet in 1997. The changes that took place in the Tahoe lake is due to the environment that surrounds it. Federal officials and scientists began devoting more money and attention to the lake. By considering lake’s natural filtration systems seriously, harmful substances responsible for algae growth can be eliminated. Homeowners were required to capture storm water from their properties, channeling water from gutters into filters in gardens, for example, to keep it from running into the lake.
UC Davis is a primary steward of the lake.
“If we got the same year as 2015, it would be awful”. And that carbon traps heat in the atmosphere.
This report is available on the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center website.
The temperature in 2015 warmed almost one-half of a degree from the previous year to a record 53.3 degrees Fahrenheit, the new study says. This marked a recent shift from the relatively constant nitrate concentrations that persisted for much of the 35-year record.
The UC Davis report also noted that over the last 100 years, the daily air temperature on the lake’s northwest shore at Tahoe City, California has increased, with a 4.3 degree rise in the daily minimum temperature and a 2 degree increase in the daily maximum temperature. It is occurring 15 days earlier than in the 1960s – mid-May instead of early June.
Geoff Schladow, director of the investigation center, supposed experts have been conscious for some time now of the increasing air temperatures around Tahoe, and more newly the warming of the lake itself. That means restoring more wetlands around the lake to naturally filter pollutants, she said, and tightening rules to reduce polluted runoff. “But we can influence the lake’s health”. Among them is reduced mixing of the water. Each one, which sits in 7 feet of water, costs $50,000.
“The same things we are seeing at Lake Tahoe are playing out at lakes all across the West”, Schladow said. Contact him at 408-920-5045.
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Paul Rogers covers resources and environmental issues.
