Apostle Islands Already Feeling Climate Change: Report

The Apostle Islands National Lakeshore is already feeling the impact of climate change, according to a report issued by the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The report, Great Lakes National Parks in Peril: The Threats of Climate Disruption, says that climate disruption in Great Lakes national parks threatens the regional economy of the Great Lakes.

“The City of Bayfield, as the gateway community to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, faces the financial reality that climate change will bring tremendous economic challenges to our National Lakeshore-based local tourism economy,” said Bayfield Mayor Larry J. MacDonald. “We need to continue to respect and protect Lake Superior. When the Lake is healthy, our community and the Apostle Islands will continue to prosper.”

The four parks, in addition to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, included in the report are Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and Isle Royale National Park.

Altogether, the parks are already seeing rising temperatures, decreased winter ice, eroding shorelines, spreading disease, and a crowding out of key wildlife and plant life. The report's details about changes already noted to be underway in the five parks include:

• Temperatures that have gone up more in the last decade than the global average.
• An increase in rain falling in heavy Midwest storms, well above the national average.
• Great Lakes winds becoming stronger – Lake Superior winds have increased by 12% since 1985.
• Great Lakes water is warming, with Lake Superior's summer water temperatures having risen about 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit from 1979 to 2006.
• The Great Lakes are covered by less ice today – ice cover across the surface of the lakes has fallen by 15%.
• Since 1975 the ice cover around the Apostle Islands has formed about 12 days later per decade and melted away three days earlier. By the end of the century, ice could last 76 days less around the Apostle Islands.

"We need to head off climate change quickly to protect our Great Lakes parks, the iconic landscapes and wildlife that live in them, and our own communities. Climate action is economic action in the Great Lakes,” said Thom Cmar, a staff attorney in the Chicago office of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “To protect the jobs and massive revenue that come out of these parks, Congress needs to either act on climate or get out of the way and let the EPA do its job to limit carbon pollution."