Geoffrey Schladow

UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center

Published date July 28, 2016

State of the Lake

  • Summarizes how natural forces, long-term change and human actions have affected Lake Tahoe’s clarity, physics, chemistry and biology over time
  • Presents data collected in 2015 and puts it in the context of the long-term record
  • Found that Lake Tahoe experienced a year like no other in 2015, with just 6.5% of precipitation occurring as snowfall and average temperatures increasing 0.3°F per year over the past 4 years — 15 times faster than the long-term warming rate