Ice Out: How N.H.’s rite of spring has become a symbol of climate change

For the past few weeks, Dave Emerson has been taking off from his airstrip on the southern side of Lake Winnipesaukee, flying his Cessna across this largest lake in New Hampshire, and looking – very carefully – for ice. 

As of last week, it was almost gone. But not quite. Not enough to call “Ice Out,” that magical moment when the MS Mount Washington, the 230-foot excursion vessel that’s been transporting tourists on this lake since the 1940s, is able to reach every one of its five ports. Center Harbor, the town on the northern fingers of the “Big Lake,” as people here call it, was still iced in. There were chunks still floating in the town of Wolfeboro’s harbor to the southeast. But it was only a matter of days that the lake would be clear, and Mr. Emerson, owner of Emerson Aviation,

Bigger extremesEcological effects“An opportunity to learn more”