The NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory is reporting that ice on the Great Lakes has declined by 30% since the 1970s:
Chicago Tribune - Scientists: The trend is less ice on Great Lakes
Cleveland Plain Dealer - Great Lakes ice cover shows climate change's existence -- and its complexity
The articles above also state that this can lead to a drop in water levels due to an increase in evaporation. Judging from Lake Erie, this has not been occurring simultaneously with the drop in ice levels:
Army Corp of Engineers - Great Lakes Water Level Table for Lake Erie
While the Chicago Tribune does not mention this, increased evaporation also results in increased precipitation. The Cleveland Plain Dealer is even egregious, extrapolating from a scientist's statement that lake levels might drop to stating that they are dropping, which, as you can see above, they apparently are not.
Precipitation is measurably increasing, however, which, instead of raising water levels, might be what is keeping them steady:
NOAA - Central Region Climate Summary
Entering the same years as the Army data above (1918 - 2008) shows an increase of 0.34 inches per decade. Curiously, while mean winter temperatures declined by 0.11°F over the same period, they have also clustered closer to the average temperature since the 1970s, corresponding with the period in decreasing lake ice. I suppose this means fewer hard freezes and more cool cloudy days.
Winter, it seems, is losing some of its edge.
