RSS Feed for keyword: "Pictures of Lake Superior"
Not only is it the largest of the Great Lakes but Lake Superior is also the largest freshwater lake in the world in surface area (31,820 square miles (82,413 square kilometers) and the third largest in volume (2,900 cubic miles (12,100 cubic kilometers of water). There is enough water in Lake Superior to cover the entire land mass of both North and South America with water to a depth of one foot.
The Ojibwa called the lake "Gichigami" meaning "big water" but it was the first french explorers who traveled by way of the Ottawa River and Lake Huron during the 17th century who called it "le lac superieure" which meant "upper lake" since it lay above Lake Huron. When the English took control of this area from the French in the 1760's, they anglicized the name to "Superior" since it was larger than any lake they had seen on the continent.
Scientists predict that should current climate trends ...More information below photos...
...Continue gallery information:continue, Lake Superior, which freezes over once in 20 years completely from shore to shore could be ice-free for the complete winter routinely by 2050. Surface temperatures of the Lake Superior in the summer appear to have risen by about 4.5 °F (2.5 °C) since 1979, faster than the surrounding air temperature rise of 2.7 °F (1.5 °C). The ice cover has been decreasing and this may account for the increase in the temperature of the surface of Lake Superior; oddly enough, these warmer temperatures can result in higher snowfall, especially in the Peninsula of Michigan.