B4
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JULY 13, 2021
Scientists fi nd more true-blue waters in Northwest
By ERIN ROSS
Oregon Public Broadcasting
You can learn a lot about
a lake from space, or at
least, you can make some
guesses. A survey of satel-
lite data over 26,000 U.S.
lakes found that lakes in the
Pacifi c Northwest are staying
true to the color blue, while
lakes in other regions of the
United States are turning
more green.
“We’re able to look at
these historical and seasonal
patterns of greenness,” said
U.S. Geological Survey sci-
entist Simon Topp, an author
on the paper.
“Lakes are defi ned by sea-
sonal changes,” Topp and his
colleagues wrote in the paper.
You can watch the lakes
change on the ground: from
icy to warm with the seasons,
clear to murky with runoff ,
and from blue to green with
algae and plant life. Things
like temperature changes,
sun and diff erent nutrients
can all impact the growth of
algae in a lake, and the time
of year that lakes turn green.
In the past, studies using
Vince Patton/Oregon Public Broadcasting
Crater Lake in southern Oregon.
satellite data focused on
a handful of lakes in one
region. But this survey used
a newly compiled data-
set, called LimnoSat-US.
By looking at thousands of
lakes instead of just a hand-
ful, researchers were able
to compare changes in lake
color across regions, seasons
and 36 years.
The survey found that in
much of the U.S., particu-
larly in the Northeast, lakes
appear to be murkier and
greener for longer parts of
the year.
“But in the Pacifi c North-
west, we see the opposite,”
Topp said. Before 2008,
many lakes in the Northwest
turned green in early spring.
But now “we see lakes where
there is a consistent seasonal
color: blue throughout the
summer months.”
It isn’t easy to tell why
Northwest
lakes
have
stopped changing color, and
have become more year-
round blue. But because it’s
a trend seen across the entire
region, Topp says it’s likely
that the same thing is causing
the color change in each lake.
If “blue lakes” make you
think of Crater Lake, you’d
be right on the money. The
lake, which sits in the cra-
ter of a collapsed volcano, is
famed for its sapphire-blue
waters. And you can see that
blue from space: data from
LimnoSat-US shows that
Crater Lake has been deep
blue for as long as we’ve had
satellites pointed at it.
Deep, clear lakes have
long been a hallmark of the
Pacifi c Northwest, and deep,
clear water absorbs col-
ors. Reds and yellows are
absorbed fi rst, while blue is
refl ected back, and that’s the
color we see. The deeper and
clearer a lake is, like Crater
Lake, the deeper the blue can
be.
Crater Lake is blue year-
round because it is so clear.
It’s what scientists call
“ultraoligotrophic.”
That
means there are not a lot of
nutrients in the lake to sup-
port things like algae. There
are no streams or rivers to
bring nutrients and sediments
into the lake. Other ultraoli-
gotrophic lakes include Clear
Lake and Waldo Lake in
Oregon, and Lake Tahoe in
California.
But as Topp explained,
blue lakes aren’t always
clear. Bits of small parti-
cles can make a murky lake
appear blue by scattering
light. This is called the Tyn-
dall eff ect, and it’s the same
reason the sky is blue.
Similarly, clear lakes
aren’t always the healthi-
est: some lakes in the North-
east are more clear because
acid rain sapped the nutri-
ents plants and algae need to
grow from the water. So why
are Oregon’s lakes bucking
national trends?
One possibility is gla-
cial runoff . Snowpack and
glaciers are shrinking, and
melting earlier every year.
If fewer nutrients are enter-
ing the lakes, they would
become more clear and less
green.
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