Increasingly, scientists believe that climate change is driving the warming waters and setting up a new regime in the Great Lakes that may lead to lower lake levels and a permanently altered shoreline.
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“The 1998 El Niño gave us a taste of what we can expect to see on the Great Lakes in a changing climate,” said Don Scavia, Co-Director of the
Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments (GLISA). “The El Niño-driven warmer temperatures are a surrogate for what the future climate might be. The lower lake levels during that time may be a signal of what might be happening under longer term climate change.”
In other words, last winter’s record low lake levels are a glimpse of what a warmer climate in the region would do to the lakes — a glimpse that so far has lasted 15 years, set off by one hot summer.