Web Forum and Search Trend Data as Alternative Data Sources for Lake Ice Duration and Thickness

Dates of ice onset and break up in lakes in northern latitudes are important climate indicators and have been explored with a variety of methods, including historical observations, in situ sensor data, and remote sensing data. Many lakes have established long term monitoring datasets; however, many other lakes, especially smaller lakes, lack ground-truth data for ice onset and ice out dates. In addition, data on changes in ice thickness over the winter season are particularly sparse. Here, I explore how ice fishing related google search data and forum data collected through web scraping processes can be used as alternative data sources for ice cover duration and thickness in a variety of locations in North America. Preliminary analyses show that the timing of peaks in searches for ice-related terminology since 2004 correlate with ice out data recorded at established monitoring stations and show similar geographic trends. In addition, ice thickness data shared in online communities record changes in thickness at popular sites at high temporal resolutions. Therefore, online community forums and web searches may represent interesting supplementary datasets for lake ice duration and thickness information, which, as has been shown by existing citizen science projects, can include a broader range of sites than are typical in traditional monitoring datasets.