One of the many nice things that climate change is ruining is pond skating. Strapping on the ice skates and making your way across the local pond/lake, going around islands or tufts of vegetable and over rough spots is *way* more fun than skating indoors, even if artificial ice is smoother.
We all know that warming winters is shortening the ice-skating season by reducing the time needed to make it thick enough, but research from York University reveals that warming winters are also hurting ice quality – increasing the amount of white ice (lots of bubbles, therefore less strength) over black ice, which is the stuff you want to skate on.
Plus, there’s this:
Beyond human safety concerns, the degrading ice quality also affects life beneath the frozen surface. The increase in white ice is blocking more sunlight from penetrating the water, potentially compromising the health of aquatic ecosystems.
Culpepper notes, “The diminishing quality of ice is also affecting life below, the amount of nutrients available for fish and other aquatic life, such as invertebrates, as well as phytoplankton which needs light for photosynthesis.”
Scienceblog has the story here.
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