New report looks at the many impacts of climate change to Great Lakes region
Ice-covered rocks glisten under the golden light as steam rises from the surface of Lake Superior at Kelsey Beach on Monday, Feb. 17, 2025, in Two Harbors, Minn. The frigid temperatures created a striking winter landscape along the shoreline.
Kerem Yucel | MPR News
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A new report that looks at the impact of climate change on the Great Lakes region finds that it’s getting warmer, faster. And that could have serious consequences. The report by the Environmental Law and Policy Center included work from more than a dozen leading scientists and experts from the Midwest and Canada. It was an update to a 2019 assessment.
Joining Minnesota Now host Nina Moini is the lead author of the report Don Wuebbles, who is also a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.
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Audio transcript
NINA MOINI: A new report that looks at the impact of climate change on the Great Lakes region finds that it's getting warmer faster, and that could have serious consequences. The report by the Environmental Law and Policy Center included work from more than a dozen leading scientists and experts from the Midwest and Canada. Joining us now is the lead author of the report, Don Wuebbels. Don is also a professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Thank you very much for your time this afternoon.
DON WUEBBELS: Good, thank you. It's good to be on the air.
NINA MOINI: Well, as we all know the Great Lakes, many of our states border them. It impacts really a large portion of the region and the entire country. Tell me a little bit, if you would, just about the significance of the Great Lakes and why it's so important to focus in and track what's going on.
DON WUEBBELS: Well, there's many reasons why the Great Lakes are so important. First of all, it represents 19% of the fresh water on Earth, so it's a major source of fresh water. On top of that, if you took the Great Lakes states and said if that was a country, it would be the third largest economy in the world.
NINA MOINI: Wow.
DON WUEBBELS: So the Great Lakes have many aspects of concern and climate change-- our concerns about what human activities are doing to the Earth's climate-- is also one of the greatest concerns humanity has ever faced. And so ELPC asked me if I would pull together scientists to look at what is happening in the Great Lakes. We did our first assessment in 2019, and then this is an update.
NINA MOINI: So 2019, you did, and now you're following up now. And just this idea of hearing that the planet is warming isn't super surprising to a lot of people. But could you break down just a little bit more about how it's warming and what you're noticing and concerned about?
DON WUEBBELS: So globally, the planet has warmed about roughly 1.3 degrees centigrade at this point. So one of the big concerns has been when we reach 1.5 degrees, which was one of the points with the United Nations programs-- there's no magic number, actually, when it becomes absolutely dangerous. But 1.5 degrees was the first indicator that we're going to see changes that are overwhelming for us to be able to deal with. And we might even achieve that by the end of this year, in terms of climate scales.
Climate is the long-term averages and variations in weather, so we're usually talking 20-year timescales when we look at the statistics. So that's globally. What we're seeing in the Great Lakes region is even higher than that. And in fact, we've seen since 1951, an increase of about 2.9 degrees Fahrenheit in the Great Lakes region. And you might say, well, that's averaged annually and seasonally throughout the region.
You might ask, well, why is that important? Well, if you go back and look at the last Ice Age, we had thousands of feet of ice over Chicago area, where I'm at right now, and probably in Minnesota as well. That was about 10 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than now, and we could approach that by the end of the century on the rate we've been going, so we're talking about a very significant warming with very large ramifications for the region.
NINA MOINI: And we even can feel and experience it, just as residents of the different states on the ground. I see here in my notes that Chicago may experience over 200 hours above 95 degrees by the 2030s. That's up from just 30 hours in recent years. That sounds very drastic.
DON WUEBBELS: Well, heat waves are certainly an important aspect. And on top of that, the lakes themselves are heating, and that's causing a lot of changes in the lakes and what they're going to be like in the coming decades.
NINA MOINI: Yeah, tell me a little bit about that. The report talks about Lake Superior and algae blooms in particular. Could you talk a little bit about first what they are for folks who don't know? And the risk that they pose.
DON WUEBBELS: Yeah, so algae tend to grow in warmer water. And they poison the water, in a sense that you can't drink it. We just actually had an algae bloom down in Central Illinois, close to where I live, that prevented people from drinking water for over a week until they were able to kill off the algae. If you have it in the Great Lakes-- and many communities rely on the Great Lakes for water-- it causes a major problem. So far, it's been a major problem in the lake that's the least deep, Lake Erie. But we expect that that concern can spread to the other lakes. Particularly, concerns are Lake Michigan and even Lake Superior.
NINA MOINI: OK. So the report is, like we mentioned, an update to the report that came out in 2019. And you found that, essentially, your projections are unchanged. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Is this the type of thing that you can't go back, you can only stop it from getting worse? Or is it something that you can move backwards on?
DON WUEBBELS: Well, it's going to be difficult to move backwards to try to reduce the level of climate change we've already seen because the amount of-- the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that are driving these changes and the reason they're increasing is because of land use change and our burning of fossil fuels. So those are very long lived. So it's going to take a long time, once they're in the atmosphere, to actually reduce the changes in climate. We're talking even 1,000 years from now probably having 10% of the extra carbon that humans have put into the atmosphere still being there-- 10% to 20%.
And so we're going to have climate change for a long, long time. But the big thing we can do is by realizing how important this issue is, that it's a science issue affecting humanity, not a political issue, as some people, particularly in the current administration, try to say. We just need to figure out what to do about it. And the best thing we could do is transition our energy and transportation to eliminate those emissions. We have the capabilities of doing that.
NINA MOINI: You're saying we do have the capabilities of doing that. And we appreciate you so much joining us. I understand you're at a festival-- or not a festival. Oh, you are. You're at a conference called the Aspen Ideas Festival. So that's some of the noise there in the back. We appreciate you.
DON WUEBBELS: Yeah, it's called Aspen Ideas climate. It's a two-day look at climate change and potential solutions for it being held here in Chicago.
NINA MOINI: Yeah, and so thank you for taking the time to join us. And just before I let you go, you're at a conference now, you're talking about different policy and the different levels. What are you hoping or where does this information from this report go? And then what do you hope comes from it?
DON WUEBBELS: Well, first of all is to make it the public better aware of what's happening in the region where we live. But also we will be doing some special briefings for Congress probably later this fall. It's a prelude to doing some of those things.
NINA MOINI: Got it. Don, thank you very much for joining us and sharing your important work with us. I really appreciate your time.
DON WUEBBELS: Happy to do so.
NINA MOINI: Thank you. That was Don Wuebbels, lead author of the new report titled "Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on the Great Lakes." We'll have a link to this report on our website. It's nprnews.org.
DON WUEBBELS: Good, thank you. It's good to be on the air.
NINA MOINI: Well, as we all know the Great Lakes, many of our states border them. It impacts really a large portion of the region and the entire country. Tell me a little bit, if you would, just about the significance of the Great Lakes and why it's so important to focus in and track what's going on.
DON WUEBBELS: Well, there's many reasons why the Great Lakes are so important. First of all, it represents 19% of the fresh water on Earth, so it's a major source of fresh water. On top of that, if you took the Great Lakes states and said if that was a country, it would be the third largest economy in the world.
NINA MOINI: Wow.
DON WUEBBELS: So the Great Lakes have many aspects of concern and climate change-- our concerns about what human activities are doing to the Earth's climate-- is also one of the greatest concerns humanity has ever faced. And so ELPC asked me if I would pull together scientists to look at what is happening in the Great Lakes. We did our first assessment in 2019, and then this is an update.
NINA MOINI: So 2019, you did, and now you're following up now. And just this idea of hearing that the planet is warming isn't super surprising to a lot of people. But could you break down just a little bit more about how it's warming and what you're noticing and concerned about?
DON WUEBBELS: So globally, the planet has warmed about roughly 1.3 degrees centigrade at this point. So one of the big concerns has been when we reach 1.5 degrees, which was one of the points with the United Nations programs-- there's no magic number, actually, when it becomes absolutely dangerous. But 1.5 degrees was the first indicator that we're going to see changes that are overwhelming for us to be able to deal with. And we might even achieve that by the end of this year, in terms of climate scales.
Climate is the long-term averages and variations in weather, so we're usually talking 20-year timescales when we look at the statistics. So that's globally. What we're seeing in the Great Lakes region is even higher than that. And in fact, we've seen since 1951, an increase of about 2.9 degrees Fahrenheit in the Great Lakes region. And you might say, well, that's averaged annually and seasonally throughout the region.
You might ask, well, why is that important? Well, if you go back and look at the last Ice Age, we had thousands of feet of ice over Chicago area, where I'm at right now, and probably in Minnesota as well. That was about 10 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than now, and we could approach that by the end of the century on the rate we've been going, so we're talking about a very significant warming with very large ramifications for the region.
NINA MOINI: And we even can feel and experience it, just as residents of the different states on the ground. I see here in my notes that Chicago may experience over 200 hours above 95 degrees by the 2030s. That's up from just 30 hours in recent years. That sounds very drastic.
DON WUEBBELS: Well, heat waves are certainly an important aspect. And on top of that, the lakes themselves are heating, and that's causing a lot of changes in the lakes and what they're going to be like in the coming decades.
NINA MOINI: Yeah, tell me a little bit about that. The report talks about Lake Superior and algae blooms in particular. Could you talk a little bit about first what they are for folks who don't know? And the risk that they pose.
DON WUEBBELS: Yeah, so algae tend to grow in warmer water. And they poison the water, in a sense that you can't drink it. We just actually had an algae bloom down in Central Illinois, close to where I live, that prevented people from drinking water for over a week until they were able to kill off the algae. If you have it in the Great Lakes-- and many communities rely on the Great Lakes for water-- it causes a major problem. So far, it's been a major problem in the lake that's the least deep, Lake Erie. But we expect that that concern can spread to the other lakes. Particularly, concerns are Lake Michigan and even Lake Superior.
NINA MOINI: OK. So the report is, like we mentioned, an update to the report that came out in 2019. And you found that, essentially, your projections are unchanged. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Is this the type of thing that you can't go back, you can only stop it from getting worse? Or is it something that you can move backwards on?
DON WUEBBELS: Well, it's going to be difficult to move backwards to try to reduce the level of climate change we've already seen because the amount of-- the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that are driving these changes and the reason they're increasing is because of land use change and our burning of fossil fuels. So those are very long lived. So it's going to take a long time, once they're in the atmosphere, to actually reduce the changes in climate. We're talking even 1,000 years from now probably having 10% of the extra carbon that humans have put into the atmosphere still being there-- 10% to 20%.
And so we're going to have climate change for a long, long time. But the big thing we can do is by realizing how important this issue is, that it's a science issue affecting humanity, not a political issue, as some people, particularly in the current administration, try to say. We just need to figure out what to do about it. And the best thing we could do is transition our energy and transportation to eliminate those emissions. We have the capabilities of doing that.
NINA MOINI: You're saying we do have the capabilities of doing that. And we appreciate you so much joining us. I understand you're at a festival-- or not a festival. Oh, you are. You're at a conference called the Aspen Ideas Festival. So that's some of the noise there in the back. We appreciate you.
DON WUEBBELS: Yeah, it's called Aspen Ideas climate. It's a two-day look at climate change and potential solutions for it being held here in Chicago.
NINA MOINI: Yeah, and so thank you for taking the time to join us. And just before I let you go, you're at a conference now, you're talking about different policy and the different levels. What are you hoping or where does this information from this report go? And then what do you hope comes from it?
DON WUEBBELS: Well, first of all is to make it the public better aware of what's happening in the region where we live. But also we will be doing some special briefings for Congress probably later this fall. It's a prelude to doing some of those things.
NINA MOINI: Got it. Don, thank you very much for joining us and sharing your important work with us. I really appreciate your time.
DON WUEBBELS: Happy to do so.
NINA MOINI: Thank you. That was Don Wuebbels, lead author of the new report titled "Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on the Great Lakes." We'll have a link to this report on our website. It's nprnews.org.
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