One of my most popular columns of 2024 was the one about psithurism, trees talking to each other. I love the fact that many readers, especially those who chase those elusive whitetails, have told me they too have learned to listen to the trees chatting each other up as they enjoy cherished time in the woods.
I drew facts for that column from an article by AmeriCorps member Kristen Summers who works for the Wisconsin Woodland Owners Association (wisconsinwoodlands.org). Based out of University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Kristen sends an email each Monday with her latest installment of Kick Off Your Week by Learning Something New.
Truth is, I actually do learn a lot of something new from Kristen. For example, she recently revealed that the rest of the earth is talking, too. In Songs of the Ice, her last article of 2024, she explained the scientific reasoning behind why each winter and spring the Townsend Flowage moans and groans so loudly it reminds me of my husband Jon’s reaction when I ask for help in the kitchen.
I knew from living on the Townsend Flowage that this “music” is caused by the ice expanding and contracting due to fluctuations in temperature. The process produces cracks that send out vibrations, creating booms and rumbles that wake me up at night. Sometimes it’s so loud, it rivals those precious pontoon boaters who think their music is so great everyone residing on the lake wants to hear it, too. (No, we don’t.)
Anyway, Lord knows I have enough trouble sleeping. Thanks to Kristen, I now know the name of what causes all that hullabaloo out on the ice. It’s called acoustic dispersion, the separation of a sound wave into its frequency components as it passes through a given medium.
She explained: “When the sound passes through something solid, like ice, frequencies travel at varying speeds that arrive at your ear at different times. The sounds are more pronounced during rapid temperature changes, such as at the beginning of the day as the sun comes out and starts warming the ice, or at night when temperatures start plummeting. It is also more likely that you will hear them on bodies of water that are clear of snow, since snow dampens the sounds.”
Ah, yes. The last two winters have been almost snowless, which explains why the lake noise has been so much more pronounced. My son, Jeremy, might compare it to my “pots and pans symphony,” the racket I make getting breakfast when he wants to sleep in while here on vacation.
That said, Kristen definitely increased my knowledge about bodies of water that freeze. She wrote that in the Great Lakes region, temperatures can shift rather quickly. This causes (here’s another new scientific word for you to add to your vocabulary) cryoseism, commonly called an ice quake. Did you know there are two types of cryoseism? There are, even though neither Siri nor spellcheck even recognize the word.
According to Kristen’s explanation, cryoseism creates icequakes that happen with “lakes and glaciers as a result of ice rifting on the surface of water.” It also creates frost quakes, which occur “when saturated ground quickly freezes and then the frozen soil or rock suddenly cracks.” It probably won’t surprise you that incidents of cryoseism are becoming much more frequent in our warming climate.
Wait, there’s more to learn. As if the songs produced by ice aren’t amazing enough, so are the ice patterns that result from the cracking. If you want to immerse yourself in this topic, search YouTube for Jonna Jinton, a Swedish artist, photographer and musician. Jonna’s channel offers over 15 hours of video that capture the beauty of singing ice in both aerial drone footage and audio recordings. It really is worth a visit.
I have never met Kristen Summers, but she has profoundly enriched my life. Thanks to her, if I am working out in the woods on a hot summer day or lying awake in the middle of a cold winter night, I take the time to actually pay attention to the sounds of nature around me. By listening to the trees talking or to the ice singing, I find myself reveling in the Divine Presence and saying a prayer of thanksgiving. That helps to brush away those negative thoughts and nagging worries, giving rise to serenity which brings sanity in an out-of-control world.
Afterthought: This column is due to run the second Friday of January, called Quitter’s Day because by then most New Year’s Resolutions are history. If that’s true for you, I challenge you to start over. My 2024 resolution was to walk five million steps. I hit the mark on Dec. 29. If I can accomplish what I never thought possible, so can you. As the Nike logo says, just do it.
Kathleen Marsh is a lifelong educator, writer and community advocate. She has published eight books, four on the history of Townsend, where she and husband Jon are happily retired on the beautiful Townsend Flowage.
Singing ice can be found on the flowage
