At least the study of global warming has come. Many people reading this may have noticed in the last month a strange looking space age object out on Lake Serena at Serene Lakes. As the pictures show, it looks like a mars lander has occupied the icy environment of Serene Lakes. So what’s going on?

A research organization called Ice911, based in the Bay Area, has set up a research study on Lake Serena. According to Dr. Leslie Field, founder of  Ice911; “We have a weather and ice thickness monitoring station on the lake this season to help us test various materials to determine which will be best at slowing down the melt of ice and snow.  The melt of polar ice and snow is an important factor in climate change, with effects that reach far beyond the polar regions”.

Why Serene Lakes? Well if you are located in Menlo Park and studying the formation and melting of ice, you need a much colder location with plenty of ice. Where better than a nice alpine lake in the Sierras that is frozen for 5-6 months a year and is just 4 hours up Hwy 80. Voila, the summit’s Lake Serena has now become a natural laboratory that may help to lessen the effects of global warming in the coming years.

The apparatus will be collecting data on the ice for the rest of this season until all the ice has melted. The apparatus has a solar panel for power, a small weather station for collecting data, a probe for measuring the thickness of the ice and it is mounted on floats to keep it high and dry after the ice melts.