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Region 5: Great Lakes
Note: While there are no estuaries in the Great Lakes, the region faces some of the same kinds of risks that marine coastal areas face from climate change.
Coastal States: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin
Projected Coastal Impacts of Climate Change
Projected impacts may include:
- Lowered lake and river levels, resulting from warmer temperatures and increased evaporation, impact recreation and shipping
- Warming lake and river temperatures leading to reductions in many fish stocks
- Changes in phytoplankton/zooplankton biomass, northward migration of fish species, possible loss of coldwater species in certain areas
- Decrease in water quality leading to habitat loss and eutrophication
- Increased agricultural productivity in many regions resulting from increased carbon dioxide and warmer temperatures
- Higher summer heat and increase in heat-related morbidity and mortality, especially in urban areas; reduced winter cold stress with associated decrease in cold-related mortality
- Reduced hydropower production; reduced channel depths for shipping
- Decreases in lake ice extent - some years without ice cover
Great Lakes Program
Climate Change Adaptation Resources
Reports, Papers, and Websites
- Climate Change and Water Quality in the Great Lakes Basin (International Joint Commission, 2003)
Climate change could have significant implications for the Great Lakes watershed. This report explores the risks, opportunities and responses associated with climate change and Great Lakes water quality.
- Confronting Climate Change in the Great Lakes Region
The Union of Concerned Scientists hosts this site to provide information about climate change impacts to the Great Lakes region, as well as to outline solutions to the climate change challenge, including mitigation and adaptation measures.
- Great Lakes Coastal Wetland Communities: Vulnerabilities to Climate Change and Response to Adaptation Strategies
The Canadian Wildlife Service and the Adaptation and Impacts Research Division of Environment Canada worked in partnership with Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the University of Waterloo on this report to examine the vulnerability of coastal wetland plant, bird and fish communities to climate variability and change, and explore adaptation strategies to maintain ecosystem function and values.
- Invasive Species in the Great Lakes
This EPA site provides information on invasive species in the Great Lakes region, as well as activities currently underway to address this problem.
State Climate Change Offices
- Illinois Climate Advisory Group
- Michigan Climate Action Council
- Minnesota Climate Change Advisory Group
- Climate Change and Ohio
- Climate Change and Wisconsin