Report Indicates Trouble Ahead For Certain Fish Found In Adirondack Lakes

Climate warming and lake browning – when dissolved organic matter from forests turns the water tea-brown – are making the bottom of most lakes in the Adirondacks unlivable for cold water species such as trout, salmon and whitefish during the summer. A new study, “Concurrent warming and browning eliminate cold-water fish habitat in many temperate lakes,” forthcoming in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that only about 5% of Adirondack lakes may continue to maintain water that is cold and oxygenated enough to support cold-water species given current trends.