Great Lakes ice coverage falls 71 percent over 40 years

NASA file/ Snow cover lingered in the Great Lakes region on Feb. 16, 2008, as shown by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite.

MNSBC:
Great Lakes ice coverage declined an average of 71 percent over the past 40 years, according to a report from the American Meteorological Society.

The amount of decline varies year to year and lake to lake, according to the report's lead researcher, Jia Wang, an ice research climatologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Wang’s report said that based on Coast Guard scanning, satellite photos and other research from 1973 to 2010, ice coverage dropped most on Lake Ontario, 88 percent; the second-largest loss was on Lake Superior, at 79 percent.