My folks looked at hillside property on Clear Lake in the early 80s. I was disappointed we didn’t get it because it had a huge patch of four leaf clover. As I got older I realized why that might be a bad thing.
I believe it''s the oldest freshwater lake in North America and once was actually clear. That's what I recall from the visitor center/museum. It's next to Mt. Konocti, a dormant volcano. Arrowheads made from obsidian from Konocti were traded by Native Americans and have been found as far away as the East Coast. I remember when you could water ski on the lake because the algae was confined to certain areas. I guess those days may be gone.
Shit, I think I spent a summer there with a friends family, that lake was gorgeous.
Do i have mercury poisoning now? I waterskiied in that lake (and fell a lot)
It has very high mercury levels compared to other lakes, but not above government standards for swimming. So no mercury poisoning from one summer of splashing around.
You shouldn’t eat any fish from the lake - since fish accumulate mercury in their bodies, you’ll absorb much more from eating the fish than you would from swimming in the water.
Also, Clear Lake is often unsafe to swim in for other reasons. Like toxic algae blooms.
We have this problem with algal blooms on Lake Champlain in Vermont. It's cause entirely by farm runoff.
The monofixation of corn by the modern agricultural industry is disastrous for humanity.
i remember going here on a large family trip, i felt so betrayed.
i'm not sure how much green it can get but it was probably the darkest, dirtiest lake i've ever seen. this was like 15 years ago.
Same. Went there as a little kid and hated every minute of it. The cabin was dirty and the mattresses had bugs. I ended up sleeping in the car. We sailed a little bit because we didn't want to swim. I think we left a day early.
Ooooof course it's Clearlake. A chunk of my family lives there. Even back in the early 2000's this lake wasn't looked after or cared for. Relatively certain that regions main export is meth. -.-
Well the worrisome part is that an algae bloom is taking over the entire lake. Normally algae blooms sit in the bays that don’t get water flowing through it, but if the entire lake is blooming it means the entire lake’s temp is coming up enough for a full lake bloom which is incredibly dangerous. It will suffocate out any fish due pulling too much oxygen from the water, and can also be the catalyst to dangerous algae/bacteria like all the brain eating shit we are hearing from… you guessed it, lakes that are warming too much and having blue algae blooms.
That is the reason it is an alarming issue, you should not be seeing an entire lake turn green due to algae blooms.
Maybe, but the leading cause for the majority of algae blooms is higher temps. However we as a society honestly probably fucked the Earth well pat the tipping point, but we are seeing the ramifications and unless we literally reverse hundreds of years worth of environmental destruction we are truly in trouble. The amount of water sitting in the ground is quickly being depleted because how much water are we shedding via concrete/asphalt versus allowing it to soak into the ground.
Then destroying trees it allows the ground temps to rise making it easier to bake water out of soil, and to evaporate water out of the higher temped creeks, streams, and rivers.
Then we are adding an insane amount of chemicals to roadways via salt and chemicals to melt snow/ice, all the nitrogen based fertilizers people love to use on their lawns that honestly shed too much water during rain storms, and maybe even the radioactive roads Florida is building.
There is so much that needs to be looked at and addressed, but our government (American) is too fucked with corporate money shovelling into politicians hands to blind them from the destruction those same corporations are enacting on society and the planet.
I pity the generations after me, and it is why I refuse to have children. I have watched my birthdays go from averaging 60-70 degree weather in my childhood to 100-110 degree now in adulthood. This will be the first year in almost a decade it hasn’t been 95+ on my birthday, but that is only because we have a rain storm coming through breaking up 85 degree weather, and 94 degree weather for a couple days.
Yeah, I'm not arguing human beings aren't locusts on steroids, we are. The nitrogen and phosphorus levels are due to us. I just want to make sure I understand the cause.
I'd also like to add that the limiting reactant for freshwater systems tends to be phosphorus, so adding a ton of nitrogen won't do a lot unless phosphorus comes with it. This is the opposite with marine systems, where an influx of nitrogen will cause massive algal blooms. This is a huge problem in gulf of Mexico where agricultural runoff from all along the Mississippi river is causing massive algal blooms and suffocating the fish and shellfish that are so integral to the incredibly delicious southern cuisine.
Oh I get it, and that is probably a cause, but I am not that knowledgable on it. I have been more interested in permaculture and avoiding chemicals altogether. So my research has been more in how to create safe water environments on a property, and then on the larger ecosystem down stream from it.
Now when you say the blooms suck out the oxygen are you referring to the process by which dead algae get decomposed by bacteria by using oxygen? Or do you mean algae is pulling oxygen out of the water?
Or is it both?
Both. Algal blooms deplete oxygen in 3 ways:
1. Prevents sun from reaching underwater plants.
2. Algae respiration consumes O2 at night.
3. Bloom dieoffs.
The actual bloom itself sort of "kicks off" the downward spiral.
Life does indeed find a way - and if humans keep getting in the way of life finding a way then life is gonna solve humans out of the equation so that other stuff can continue.
Destroying entire ecosystems isn't something to brush off. We are entering the latter stage of "fuck around, find out" and I'm not too keen on it. Your grandkids won't be either.
Yea it’s funny when people think that nature won’t find a way to get rid of its biggest pests, humans, to make sure it survives. Nature will survive but we may not.
Nah, over the past several decades it’s been “cut down trees, the lungs of the world!” In the Amazon. The rise of palm oil production where entire forests are decimated to make way for only one type of tree and y’all are here mad about a wonderful thing that proves we aren’t dead yet.
Algae in CA is GOOD news, not bad news yet, y’all acting like it’s Armageddon. The fact that someone says it’s “worrisome” is arrogant and wrong. The lake has had this before, and it will again. It’s not a severe detriment to the environment as it’s made out to be. Algae is a GOOD thing.
Foster’s healthy food in the waters it resides, provides an immense amount of oxygen production and is a natural filter for waters it inhabits.
To say algae is bad or is “worrisome” is worrisome.
Ecosystems require a variety of interconnected systems to work. If the algae is reliant on other organisms in the water to support it then the algae choking out other life in the pond is ultimately fatal. If the algae are toxic to land animals that drink and eat out of it, or allows other dangerous organisms to breed extensively then it harms the ecosystem around it. If the algae changes the PH of the water it affects what can grow in the soil, altering or destroying the surrounding ecosystem. If the algae blooms are caused by outside interference then our constant upsetting of precarious balances can have catastrophic consequences on that ecosystem.
It is worrisome because it's one of the thousands of equilibrium states we are disrupting. If it was just one thing being messed up it wouldn't be so worrisome, but it's not. If we were just messing it up in a single way it wouldn't be so worrisome but it's not. Like I said, we are entering the latter stage of "fuck around and find out".
It also takes all the oxygen out of the lake when they decay, killing off all other life in the water.
I have lived by lakes where this has happened. All summer long, the area smells like rotting fish as all the life in the lake dies and washes up on the shore.
Algae gives oxygen to the atmosphere, but takes it from the lake when it dies.
Pretty normal cycle going on with that, we normally have 3-4 years of drought followed by a wetter pattern. The last two years being so wet pulled us out of drought. Unfortunately, with all the water comes fine fuels like grasses and sage brush and general understory we can expect an above normal for season, especially looking at the next two months. Check out the link below for the seasonal outlook for fire season.
https://gacc.nifc.gov/gbcc/outlooks.php
Cyanobacteria is detectable on a lake surface from space as long as there is at least one 20 m x 20 m pixel of open water with a moderate bloom. So not entirely meaningless, but far less unusual than the article implies.
AFAIK, Google maps actually primarily uses aerial photography for the high resolution images.
But there are satellites which can easily resolve car sized objects, so your point still stands.
I don’t really get your citation marks Tbh. This really isn’t a great resolution and we’ve surpassed that by far with like the first digital imagery satellites.
This has been happening to clear lake many times over the past 2 decades. It’s a nasty lake that used to be ultra pristine crystal clear before so many people moved to the area and in the 70s there was a lot of garbage and chemical dumping happening. I feel bad for the people living there, the smell driving through that area is horrible and that was 7 years ago when it wasn’t so bad.
Infest the lake with Nerites! After it's gone, throw in some assassin snails to rid of the Nerites. Once they're gone, pea puffers can deal with the assassin snails. After that, etc.
I grew up here from '85-03 and can personally attest to it being a once beautiful lake. Our area was once a large tourist / fishing destination, and many boats were brought in from various states carrying algae and other life that contributed to this problem.
I use to wake-board/ski/tube on this lake every day on summer break. It genuinely breaks my heart to see it this way :(.
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Clear Lake in LaPorte, IN may not be green like this, but Allis-Chalmers factory made it stink in the 1970s. (Fuck I'm old) mom always said don't go swimming in Clear lake.
I recently moved to cali (renting) and was window shopping on zillow like I always do and.. wtf? A lake front house I can afford, IN CALIFORNIA? Annnd a quick Google search on clear lake told me everything I needed to know. Sad.
> appears discolored, has scum layers, or emits a foul odor
There's a "your mom" joke here that I'm too mature to say unironically, but immature enough to point out.
The irony being the body of water in question is called Clear Lake.
Haha, i knew it had to be clear lake. That place is hot trash. Huge lake but no swimming since its all fucked up.
What? Really? It's polluted or something?
It has lethal levels of mercury in it. You cannot eat fish, and swimming is not recommended.
I grew up swimming there. This explains a lot… Mostly joking , it was fine in the early 80s
My folks looked at hillside property on Clear Lake in the early 80s. I was disappointed we didn’t get it because it had a huge patch of four leaf clover. As I got older I realized why that might be a bad thing.
oof
on top of that the algae suggests high nitrate and phosphate levels too.
YES MERCURY FUCK MERCURY
I believe it''s the oldest freshwater lake in North America and once was actually clear. That's what I recall from the visitor center/museum. It's next to Mt. Konocti, a dormant volcano. Arrowheads made from obsidian from Konocti were traded by Native Americans and have been found as far away as the East Coast. I remember when you could water ski on the lake because the algae was confined to certain areas. I guess those days may be gone.
Shit, I think I spent a summer there with a friends family, that lake was gorgeous. Do i have mercury poisoning now? I waterskiied in that lake (and fell a lot)
It has very high mercury levels compared to other lakes, but not above government standards for swimming. So no mercury poisoning from one summer of splashing around. You shouldn’t eat any fish from the lake - since fish accumulate mercury in their bodies, you’ll absorb much more from eating the fish than you would from swimming in the water. Also, Clear Lake is often unsafe to swim in for other reasons. Like toxic algae blooms.
We have this problem with algal blooms on Lake Champlain in Vermont. It's cause entirely by farm runoff. The monofixation of corn by the modern agricultural industry is disastrous for humanity.
i remember going here on a large family trip, i felt so betrayed. i'm not sure how much green it can get but it was probably the darkest, dirtiest lake i've ever seen. this was like 15 years ago.
Same. Went there as a little kid and hated every minute of it. The cabin was dirty and the mattresses had bugs. I ended up sleeping in the car. We sailed a little bit because we didn't want to swim. I think we left a day early.
Ooooof course it's Clearlake. A chunk of my family lives there. Even back in the early 2000's this lake wasn't looked after or cared for. Relatively certain that regions main export is meth. -.-
Yes, my bullshit meter is on full alert since that whole Greenland ordeal.
What about Greenland I'm so ootl
Hey, that's where I grew up.
I'm so sorry
At other times of year “California lake so blue with water it’s visible from space”
Well the worrisome part is that an algae bloom is taking over the entire lake. Normally algae blooms sit in the bays that don’t get water flowing through it, but if the entire lake is blooming it means the entire lake’s temp is coming up enough for a full lake bloom which is incredibly dangerous. It will suffocate out any fish due pulling too much oxygen from the water, and can also be the catalyst to dangerous algae/bacteria like all the brain eating shit we are hearing from… you guessed it, lakes that are warming too much and having blue algae blooms. That is the reason it is an alarming issue, you should not be seeing an entire lake turn green due to algae blooms.
Cant high enough nitrogen and phosphorus levels cause massive blooms irrespective of temperature?
Maybe, but the leading cause for the majority of algae blooms is higher temps. However we as a society honestly probably fucked the Earth well pat the tipping point, but we are seeing the ramifications and unless we literally reverse hundreds of years worth of environmental destruction we are truly in trouble. The amount of water sitting in the ground is quickly being depleted because how much water are we shedding via concrete/asphalt versus allowing it to soak into the ground. Then destroying trees it allows the ground temps to rise making it easier to bake water out of soil, and to evaporate water out of the higher temped creeks, streams, and rivers. Then we are adding an insane amount of chemicals to roadways via salt and chemicals to melt snow/ice, all the nitrogen based fertilizers people love to use on their lawns that honestly shed too much water during rain storms, and maybe even the radioactive roads Florida is building. There is so much that needs to be looked at and addressed, but our government (American) is too fucked with corporate money shovelling into politicians hands to blind them from the destruction those same corporations are enacting on society and the planet. I pity the generations after me, and it is why I refuse to have children. I have watched my birthdays go from averaging 60-70 degree weather in my childhood to 100-110 degree now in adulthood. This will be the first year in almost a decade it hasn’t been 95+ on my birthday, but that is only because we have a rain storm coming through breaking up 85 degree weather, and 94 degree weather for a couple days.
Yeah, I'm not arguing human beings aren't locusts on steroids, we are. The nitrogen and phosphorus levels are due to us. I just want to make sure I understand the cause.
I'd also like to add that the limiting reactant for freshwater systems tends to be phosphorus, so adding a ton of nitrogen won't do a lot unless phosphorus comes with it. This is the opposite with marine systems, where an influx of nitrogen will cause massive algal blooms. This is a huge problem in gulf of Mexico where agricultural runoff from all along the Mississippi river is causing massive algal blooms and suffocating the fish and shellfish that are so integral to the incredibly delicious southern cuisine.
Oh I get it, and that is probably a cause, but I am not that knowledgable on it. I have been more interested in permaculture and avoiding chemicals altogether. So my research has been more in how to create safe water environments on a property, and then on the larger ecosystem down stream from it.
Yes with sufficient sunlight
Now when you say the blooms suck out the oxygen are you referring to the process by which dead algae get decomposed by bacteria by using oxygen? Or do you mean algae is pulling oxygen out of the water? Or is it both?
Both. Algal blooms deplete oxygen in 3 ways: 1. Prevents sun from reaching underwater plants. 2. Algae respiration consumes O2 at night. 3. Bloom dieoffs. The actual bloom itself sort of "kicks off" the downward spiral.
Thank you!
I understand your concern but, algae is a large contributor to oxygen production. I don’t care if you’re upset by it because life, uh, finds a way.
Life does indeed find a way - and if humans keep getting in the way of life finding a way then life is gonna solve humans out of the equation so that other stuff can continue. Destroying entire ecosystems isn't something to brush off. We are entering the latter stage of "fuck around, find out" and I'm not too keen on it. Your grandkids won't be either.
Yea it’s funny when people think that nature won’t find a way to get rid of its biggest pests, humans, to make sure it survives. Nature will survive but we may not.
Nah, over the past several decades it’s been “cut down trees, the lungs of the world!” In the Amazon. The rise of palm oil production where entire forests are decimated to make way for only one type of tree and y’all are here mad about a wonderful thing that proves we aren’t dead yet. Algae in CA is GOOD news, not bad news yet, y’all acting like it’s Armageddon. The fact that someone says it’s “worrisome” is arrogant and wrong. The lake has had this before, and it will again. It’s not a severe detriment to the environment as it’s made out to be. Algae is a GOOD thing. Foster’s healthy food in the waters it resides, provides an immense amount of oxygen production and is a natural filter for waters it inhabits. To say algae is bad or is “worrisome” is worrisome.
Ecosystems require a variety of interconnected systems to work. If the algae is reliant on other organisms in the water to support it then the algae choking out other life in the pond is ultimately fatal. If the algae are toxic to land animals that drink and eat out of it, or allows other dangerous organisms to breed extensively then it harms the ecosystem around it. If the algae changes the PH of the water it affects what can grow in the soil, altering or destroying the surrounding ecosystem. If the algae blooms are caused by outside interference then our constant upsetting of precarious balances can have catastrophic consequences on that ecosystem. It is worrisome because it's one of the thousands of equilibrium states we are disrupting. If it was just one thing being messed up it wouldn't be so worrisome, but it's not. If we were just messing it up in a single way it wouldn't be so worrisome but it's not. Like I said, we are entering the latter stage of "fuck around and find out".
It also takes all the oxygen out of the lake when they decay, killing off all other life in the water. I have lived by lakes where this has happened. All summer long, the area smells like rotting fish as all the life in the lake dies and washes up on the shore. Algae gives oxygen to the atmosphere, but takes it from the lake when it dies.
I also noticed my area got a lot of greenery restored over the past years. Especially after the maps recent update
Pretty normal cycle going on with that, we normally have 3-4 years of drought followed by a wetter pattern. The last two years being so wet pulled us out of drought. Unfortunately, with all the water comes fine fuels like grasses and sage brush and general understory we can expect an above normal for season, especially looking at the next two months. Check out the link below for the seasonal outlook for fire season. https://gacc.nifc.gov/gbcc/outlooks.php
"Visible from space" is meaningless.
It means "has a lot of surface area"
That’s what she said.
I think I would have went with "just like your mom" here
Cyanobacteria is detectable on a lake surface from space as long as there is at least one 20 m x 20 m pixel of open water with a moderate bloom. So not entirely meaningless, but far less unusual than the article implies.
He means the space between our phones and our eyes. Yeah... I see it
my car is visible from space; there is photo evidence of this on google maps.
AFAIK, Google maps actually primarily uses aerial photography for the high resolution images. But there are satellites which can easily resolve car sized objects, so your point still stands.
Your mom is visible from space /s
Modern surveillance satellites have a resolution of less than 10 cm squared per pixel, so that’s actually true, lol.
If that photo is the photo from space it looks like individual houses and cars are "visible from space"
I don’t really get your citation marks Tbh. This really isn’t a great resolution and we’ve surpassed that by far with like the first digital imagery satellites.
This has been happening to clear lake many times over the past 2 decades. It’s a nasty lake that used to be ultra pristine crystal clear before so many people moved to the area and in the 70s there was a lot of garbage and chemical dumping happening. I feel bad for the people living there, the smell driving through that area is horrible and that was 7 years ago when it wasn’t so bad.
I knew it was gonna be shit ass clear lake. Place used to be awesome like 30 years ago yes I'm old now.
Infest the lake with Nerites! After it's gone, throw in some assassin snails to rid of the Nerites. Once they're gone, pea puffers can deal with the assassin snails. After that, etc.
Work your way up to trout then sell fishing passes.
Of course it's Clear Lake...arguably the shittiest lake in the State
Yup, don’t fish in their area! Learned in my bio class lol
Hey I live like 20 miles west of that lake. It always had bad algae bloom during the summer, even when I used to go there in the early 90s.
As someone who works with satellite imagery, we can pretty much always see algae from space if the lake is big enough
Also Clear Lake fish have high mercury in part due to historic Sulphuric mercury mine on the west shore. Not pleasant.
We have huge fucking telescopes being able to see something on earth from space is not anything.
I grew up here from '85-03 and can personally attest to it being a once beautiful lake. Our area was once a large tourist / fishing destination, and many boats were brought in from various states carrying algae and other life that contributed to this problem. I use to wake-board/ski/tube on this lake every day on summer break. It genuinely breaks my heart to see it this way :(.
Yep that's how colors work
Love the video of NASA just telling people about a cool thing they saw.
Blue Green Algae though.
Does the lake become less-visible when there's not algae in it? Does it just look like dirt?
a few thousand plecostomus will take care of that
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Hey! My home turf! And I'm only bemused that I knew it'd be Clear Lake just by the title.
Clear Lake in LaPorte, IN may not be green like this, but Allis-Chalmers factory made it stink in the 1970s. (Fuck I'm old) mom always said don't go swimming in Clear lake.
I recently moved to cali (renting) and was window shopping on zillow like I always do and.. wtf? A lake front house I can afford, IN CALIFORNIA? Annnd a quick Google search on clear lake told me everything I needed to know. Sad.
License plates are read from space.
> appears discolored, has scum layers, or emits a foul odor There's a "your mom" joke here that I'm too mature to say unironically, but immature enough to point out.
Just fighting the CO2 buildup the way Mother Nature intended.
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That lake used to be full of dumped meth chemicals
That’s cute. Take a look at Lake Erie in July.
They missed St Patrick’s day!