Lakes Content

What Does A Record-Breaking Wildfire Season Mean For Life in Alpine Lakes?

Katherine E Kerlin — April 21, 2026 - 10:39am

In the summer of 2020, MJ Farruggia embarked on the first field season of her PhD research. With a backpack full of scientific equipment and camping gear, she hiked high into the Emerald Lake Watershed high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains to install environmental sensors and collect water samples from six small lakes and ponds.

Lake Tahoe Clarity Report: Trend Stable, Not Improving

Katherine E Kerlin — June 16, 2025 - 5:35pm

UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center releases its annual Tahoe Clarity Report.

Lake Tahoe Clarity Report Shows Highs and Lows of 2023

Katherine E Kerlin — July 30, 2024 - 10:07am

The clarity of Lake Tahoe’s famed blue waters in 2023 continued its years-long trend of improving during the winter and deteriorating during the summer. The annual clarity report, released today by the University of California, Davis – Tahoe Environmental Research Center, found that winter lake conditions were the clearest observed since 1983, with visibility of 91.9 feet under the surface, compared with 72.2 feet in 2022.

Wildfire Smoke Reached 99% of U.S. Lakes in 2019-2021

Katherine E Kerlin — June 07, 2024 - 9:00am

Where there's smoke, there's not always fire. Wildfire smoke drifted to nearly every lake in North America for at least one day per year from 2019 to 2021, found a UC Davis study.

Smoke Covered 70% of California During Biggest Wildfire Years

Katherine E Kerlin — May 22, 2024 - 9:32am

As much as 70% of California was covered by wildfire smoke during parts of 2020 and 2021, according to a UC Davis study.

Losing Winter

Katherine E Kerlin — February 02, 2022 - 9:30am

How small mountain lakes spend their winters is largely unknown to scientists, despite winter representing nearly half the year in such environments. A study by the University of California, Davis, helps demystify what happens above and below the ice.

Helping Out Lakes in Hot Water

Katherine E Kerlin — June 09, 2021 - 1:55pm

When hot weather hits, we long for cool waters. The warm sand, sparkling lakes, that first run off the pier and into the splash of summer. This is classic, nostalgia-soaked stuff.

But the world’s lakes are getting warmer and losing oxygen, which threatens biodiversity, water quality and habitat for freshwater species, according to two studies published this month.

Microplastics: Not Just an Ocean Problem

Katherine E Kerlin — August 07, 2019 - 5:15am

From the infamous “garbage patch” islands of floating plastic to the guts of fish and bellies of birds, plastics of all sizes are ubiquitous and well-documented in the ocean. But little data exists on microplastics in lakes.

Fish Die-Offs Linked to Hotter Summers

Katherine E Kerlin — July 08, 2019 - 2:49pm

Fish die-offs in Wisconsin lakes are expected to double by mid-century and quadruple by 2100 due to warmer summer temperatures, according to a study published today in the journal Nature Climate Change.

How Climate Change Is Affecting Small Sierra Nevada Lakes

Katherine E Kerlin — December 19, 2018 - 11:45am

Scientists at the University of California, Davis, are taking the temperature — and other measurements — of lakes of all sizes and shapes throughout the mountains of California to see how climate change is affecting them and what, perhaps, can be done about it.

A study published this month in the journal Limnology and Oceanography Letters shows that, despite rapidly warming air temperatures, spring snowpack is the biggest predictor of summer warming in small Sierra Nevada lakes.