Ice Floats

Lake Michigan, MI (Feb 7, 2009)

The Midwest is going through a strange break in winter, almost like an out-of-season brief summer. The piles of snow at the side of the road are gone. The snow owl in front of Graham’s in Geneva is toppled. I am sorry I didn’t see it before the big thaw, it must have been quite spectacular.

I just arrived in Illinois yesterday, after a grueling week of proposal-writing for Spitzer: we will see in a couple of months if NASA will allow us to search for more planets around nearby stars. I slept for a good portion of my flight, looking out of the window from time to time, to see the uniform white cover of clouds shining in the sunny day. Just when the plane was crossing into Lake Michigan from the Michigan side, the view opened to reveal the geometry of ice and water floating not far from the shore. A close look at the full resolution image shows the surface of the ice to be criss-crossed by a spiderweb of fratures. In some areas what looks like a solid block is in fact a mosaic of little tiles of ice, brought together by the currents. Farther away from the shore the water was completely clear, and the Chicago side of the lake was ice-free as well. This contrast must tell something about the weather in Michigan... and I thought that winter in Chicago was the worst!