Unclear and Present Danger

Climate change may cloud Lake Tahoe's waters, study says

Posted at 12:45 PM on 25 Mar 2008

Climate change will likely cloud Lake Tahoe's famously clear waters within a decade, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California at Davis. Warmer temperatures are likely to alter and eventually shut down the lake's deep-water circulation, eventually turning the waters a murky green, researchers said. "A permanently stratified Lake Tahoe becomes just like any other lake or pond. It is no longer this unique, effervescent jewel, the finest example of nature's grandeur," said Geoffrey Schladow, director of the Tahoe Environmental Research Center (and likely a closet Tahoe-brochure author). A water-circulation shutdown would almost certainly mess with the lake's ecology too. "If mixing shuts down, then no new oxygen gets to the bottom of the lake, and creatures that need it, such as lake trout, will have a large part of their range excluded," he said.

source:  Associated Press