Lake Baikal "ice corals"
The largest lake by volume in the world is surrounded by some of the most interesting ice formations on the planet.Photo: BaikalNature
...People living (click here) along the lake have long kept track of the freezing and break-up. One of the best records comes from a monitoring station at Listvyanka, a village on the southeastern coast of the lake that’s about 70 kilometers (40 miles) southeast of Irkutsk. The Listvyanka station has kept uninterrupted records of ice formation and melting that date back to 1869.
Measurements from Listvyanka reveal some interesting trends related
to the timing of ice break-up; most notably that it is occurring earlier
now than in the past. In the 1870s, thawing began around May 10; today,
it often begins in late April. One study
by a Swiss researcher calculated that the thawing date had moved by
half a day per decade between 1869 and 1999. However, the most rapid
change (about 3 days earlier per decade) occurred between 1869 and 1920.
Since 1920, the date of ice breakup has remained fairly constant at
Listvynaka. Ice formation, however, has occurred later in the winter, so
the overall ice cover doesn't last as long as it once did....
