Lake Superior is Warming

[Doug]

DOUG
When I went to the lake some years ago, for the first time, a woman from Minnesota told me that there are very few places where people swim in Lake Superior (aka. "Gitchigumi," the Native American name). The water is too cold year-round. Now it seems that global warming is changing that.

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MARQUETTE, Mich. - Deep enough to hold the combined water in all the other Great Lakes and with a surface area as large as South Carolina, Lake Superior's size has lent it an aura of invulnerability. But the mighty Superior is losing water and getting warmer, worrying those who live near its shores, scientists and companies that rely on the lake for business.

The changes to the lake could be signs of climate change, although scientists aren't sure.

Superior's level is at its lowest point in eight decades and will set a record this fall if, as expected, it dips three more inches. Meanwhile, the average water temperature has surged 4.5 degrees since 1979, significantly above the 2.7-degree rise in the region's air temperature during the same period.

That's no small deal for a freshwater sea that was created from glacial melt as the Ice Age ended and remains chilly in all seasons.

A weather buoy on the western side recently recorded an "amazing" 75 degrees, "as warm a surface temperature as we've ever seen in this lake," said Jay Austin, assistant professor at the University of Minnesota at Duluth's Large Lakes Observatory.

Read the rest here.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

No "could be" about it - the fisheries will crash, along with most of the other lake-related small businesses. This is probably going to - stress - treaties with both the Native Americans and with Canada, as well. And it's quite probably too late to do anything about it. Huge systems like Superior/Gitchigumi are like freight trains - slow to start and hard to stop when they get going.