For the last five months of 2022, Lake Tahoe was the clearest it has been since the 1980s.
For the last five months of 2022, Lake Tahoe was the clearest it has been since the 1980s. That is due in part to a resurgence of the lake’s native zooplankton. They’ve provided a natural clean-up crew to help restore the lake’s famous blue waters.
The findings are reported in the “Lake Tahoe Clarity Report 2022,” released today from the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center, or TERC, for the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.
Clarity Sinks In
Clarity is measured as the depth to which a 10-inch white disk, called a Secchi disk, remains visible when lowered into the water.
In 2022, Lake Tahoe’s average annual clarity was 71.7 feet compared to 61 feet in 2021. The key finding from 2022 was the great improvement in lake clarity from August through December, when the average Secchi depth was 80.6 feet. This coincided with the highest numbers of the zooplankton Daphnia and Bosmina.
Read more at University of California, Davis
Photo Credit: 1778011 via Pixabay
