More winter mosaic

dome, pineland, dome, pineland (repeat)

Winter vs summer swamp

Here's a quick comparison between the winter and summer swamp.


The swamp mosaic is easiest to see during winter.

That's because the cypress trees lose their needles and turn gray.

Pine islands are harder to see during summer.
During the winter they really jump out.

But the true difference is most evident on the ground:

Cypress domes are filled with water during the summer whereas by the end of winter they are at various stage of drying down.

Cypress knees stand as tall as their name,
but water rises up them only shin deep.

There is also that temperature thing ...

And mosquitoes.

Mullet Slough below!

Mullet slough is a sea of mostly cypress
as far as the eye can see

Mosaic-less swamp?

Winter is the best time for viewing the swamp mosaic ...

Unless you're in a spot where it isn't there.



This video explains.

Kingsley Lake

Can you see St Johns River, too?

Do two negatives make a positive?

Of all the lakes you see when flying over Florida ...

One of them in particular doesn’t look right.

Lake Apopka looks as thick as pea soup

It’s Lake Apopka.

No, it’s not short for Apopkalypse, but some would argue it’s reached that point. Once a popular fishing destination, over nutrification fueled algae blooms which, decades later, have accumulated into a thick layer of benthic muck.


The result?

The lake just won’t heal because the water’s too murky for native submerged aquatic plants.  I could literally see that muck swirling like pea soup from the 35,000 feet in the air.


The solution?

Could an invasive exotic aquatic plant called hydrilla suffice instead? It thrives in murky and would make the water less so by taking root, plus provide habitat for fish and waterfowl ... but it could prove difficult to control or fully reverse, too.  Click here to read a newspaper article in the Orlando Sentinel that describes more.

The road south of the lake leads east to Orlando

Do two negatives make a positive?

In the mathematics of modern-day water management they just might.

Lake Mead stages a comeback

Lake Okeechobee rose three ft after October.
Lake Mead rose around 50 ft in 2011.

"Very good" canyon

I just finished re-reading Down The Great Unknown:

The story of General John Wesley Powell’s Journey of Discovery and Tragedy through the Grand Canyon by author Edward Dolnick.

The Grand Canyon may look the same,
but its hydrograph is night and day different.

By re-read I mean it’s probably the third or fourth time.

Powell himself went down the river twice, the second time of which he didn’t make it full way and, much to the dismay of his crew members the second time around, were not mentioned in his seminal account of his harrowing escapade.  Another interesting fact is that Powell's crew ran the rapids facing backwards.  The "facing the danger" technique of running river rapids had not yet been invented.  Most amazing of all, of course, is that Powell only had one arm.


What would Powell think of the river today?

The book mentions that the run of the Colorado through the Grand Canyon is much the same as it was with the notable exception that its hydrograph has dramatically changed.


Prior to 1960 the river ran free.

It regularly peaked upwards of 80,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) in the late spring only to drop down to a miniscule trickle, often under 7.000 cfs, for the rest of the year.

By modern standards, 2011 was a big flow year.

It marked the first year since the late 1990s 

that water stage in downstream Lake Mead went up.     

Compare that to the river today.

River flow is carefully regulated at upstream Glen Canyon Dam between a narrow range of 7,000 and 40,000 cfs. The seasonal swing from flood to drought is gone.


Do I, like Powell, have aspirations of running the river?

More than likely I’ll just re-read the book (...again)!