Several years had low sea ice cover in the past decade, yet most of those years were warm at middle latitude winters by 1951 - 1980 standards. (skepticalscience.com)
It found that decreasing ice cover in this region doubles the chances of unusually cold winters across wide areas to the south and east. (pri.org)
Thus the entire lake food web is impacted by the degree of ice cover from year to year and the degree of winter productivity. (sciencedaily.com)