Satellite Studies Of Fresh-Water Ice Movement On Lake Erie

Abstract

Abstract Since the winter of 1972–73, NOAA visible and thermal images of North America have been available for the study of ice on the Great Lakes. The shallowest of the Great Lakes is Lake Erie, on which ice occurs from December usually through April. The NOAA series of polar-orbiting satellites collect two thermal and one visible image per day; the Geostationary Observational Environmental Satellites (GOES) collect visible and infrared images every 30 min. NASA’s Landsat satellite has an 18 d revisit cycle (a 9 d cycle when two are operating), with superb ground resolution (79 m). Satellite images from all three satellites were used in this study. Ice formation, movement, and break-up in Lake Erie are different in each sub-basin, Western, Central, and Eastern, owing to the variation in depth of water, geomorphology, and meteorologic factors. Ice movement after initial break-up in 1974–77 resulted in the accumulation of ice at the entrance of the Niagara River at the eastern end of the lake. In 1973, satellite images show the unusual development of an ice dam across the entire width of Lake Erie and the “ice plug” at the mouth of the Niagara did not form. The effect of wind direction on break-up patterns is seen to be critical to any attempt at forecasting date of complete ice melt as well as day-to-day distribution of ice. Satellite observation of ice in Lake Erie—and in all large lakes—provides information regularly, routinely, and synoptically from a point in space. These data are useful for the study of ice formation, movement, and break-up, and they provide an unrivaled and unprecedented data set of historical records.