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Dear Sea Grant Stakeholders,
When we think of climate change, we usually envision melting ice caps and rising sea level, but many areas are subject to an entirely different set of impacts. Great Lakes communities, for instance, may confront impacts ranging from droughts that could severely impact agriculture to extreme rainfall events that may overwhelm sewer systems to stagnant air masses capable of aggravating respiratory ailments.
Tapping into a growing body of research, NOAA Sea Grant is filling a critical niche by helping Great Lakes community leaders prepare for these challenges. Great Lakes Sea Grant programs are preparing local communities for these changes using individualized, rather than "one size fits all," approaches, while also engaging the assets of our collective network and our myriad partners, to enhance the region's adaptive capacity. I'd like to share some highlights.
Specialists from Wisconsin and Minnesota Sea Grant are meeting with representatives from more than 35 cities and villages in 11 different coastal counties located along Lake Michigan and Lake Superior.
"The thought was to take the body of work that's been done on climate adaptation and put it into a community checklist, where we could go in for a few hours to most of a day and meet with local government officials, and walk through it," said Wisconsin Sea Grant's David Hart. "The checklist condenses the issues down to the answer to a simple question: How does this relate to your community?"
In addition to engaging civic leaders in targeted adaptation planning to ensure that ports, harbors, marinas and stormwater systems are able to deal with risks from fluctuating water levels to increased storm waves, Sea Grant also offers products and services to help manage climate change issues.
Minnesota Sea Grant has created a port assets matrix and dredging cost estimation tool that assesses the potential infrastructure, dredging and economic risks harbors may confront. Wisconsin Sea Grant has worked to create visualization models that could help characterize how climate change could affect coastal topography.
"These are changes that are probably going to happen to communities over the next decade," said Hart. "Talking about them now just gives us some more time to spread the cost of being able to address these issues, to where it becomes more manageable."
Great Lakes Sea Grant programs in Ohio, Michigan, Illinois-Indiana, New York, Lake Champlain and Pennsylvania are also taking unique, customized approaches to informing and preparing residents. Here is a sampling of additional resources we would like to make you aware of:
Climate Change Webinar Series
(Ohio Sea Grant and Ohio State University developed an ongoing series of webinars bringing climate research and resources to residents of Ohio and the Great Lakes.)
Preparing for Climate Change in the Great Lakes Region (A workshop and report identifying policy changes that will enable Great Lakes communities to adapt, and strategies for implementation, from Michigan Sea Grant.)
Climate News, Research Projects, Products Website (A variety of climate change resources from Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant.)
Videos on Great Lakes issues including boating safety and other weather-related concerns (Topical videos on Great Lakes climate change from New York Sea Grant)
For more from Sea Grant on climate change, please visit the National Sea Grant Library. In future months, I will continue to update you on NOAA Sea Grant's climate engagement activities as we endeavor to ensure the safety and resiliency of our coastal communities and their residents.
Regards,
Leon M. Cammen,
Director, National Sea Grant College Program
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
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