As the global climate changes, so do conditions in the Great Lakes. In coming decades, the Great Lakes are expected to see warmer waters, more frequent and intense storms, less ice cover and greater fluctuations in water levels.
Climate Change
A team at Indiana University is developing guidance to help communities plan for and adapt to climate change in the Great Lakes. The focus is on helping people prepare for that early period in a flood event before local, state or federal help is available.
Long held up as the coldest and the cleanest of the Great Lakes, Lake Superior is nonetheless seeing the impacts of climate change. Warmer air temperatures have brought more frequent and powerful storms to the region, and Superior is warming faster than the other Great Lakes.
For timely, meaningful progress to improve the health of the Great Lakes, it’s going to take a village.
This is the third article in a series highlighting how communities along the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River are using innovative solutions to adapt to the current period of high water levels, focusing on work in New York, Ontario and Quebec to prepare for extreme water levels in the future.
Now more than ever, it’s time to embrace binational cooperation to ensure that the waters and people of the Great Lakes basin are healthy.
This broadcast will be live from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. ET Thursday, December 10, 2020. The broadcast will be available on-demand at this link immediately afterwards. For the report and more information visit ijc.org/en/2020-TAP-Report.
The IJC’s first Triennial Assessment of Progress report was released in November 2017, as well as a Highlights report, a Technical Appendix and a Summary of Public Comment Appendix.
The Osoyoos Lake Board of Control (IOLBC) is developing a multi-year, multi-phase project to analyze the vulnerability of Osoyoos Lake and the relevant IJC Orders of Approval to a projected shift in the climate and hydrology of the Okanagan/Okanogan (Canadian and American spellings, respectively)…