Our Changing Climate Is Presenting Major Challenges to the Great Lakes Region

ABSTRACT The Earth's climate, including that of North America, is changing rapidly and the corresponding changes in temperature, precipitation, extreme weather, and other effects are accelerating. This changing climate is affecting the region around the Great Lakes and the physical behavior of the Great Lakes themselves, presenting new challenges to humans, their infrastructure, and to natural resources, including other life in the region. Temperature in the Great Lakes continues to increase, with the greatest increases occurring in the deeper water. Winter ice cover on the Great Lakes is decreasing. In the future, Great Lakes water levels will likely exhibit greater variability and dispersion from the long‐term average, with more tendency for higher lake levels, potentially impacting coastal communities and infrastructure. The increasing precipitation coming as larger events, the overall increase in precipitation in winter and spring, less as snow (except in lake‐effect snow areas), along with the overall warmer temperatures resulting in increasing evaporative demand and somewhat dryer summers, are all changing the hydrology of the region. The aim of this commentary was to summarize what is happening and projected to happen to the Great Lakes and the Great Lakes region. Continuing to update and assess the changes occurring and projected to change is crucial to understanding climate change and its impacts, and to planning and policy making to adapt and achieve resiliency.