Interesting look at climate change in Michigan

We just finished a great series of 3 shows looking at the local--New England--impact of climate change.

One of the things we discussed was New England versus the rest of the nation and world, and whether we had unique challenges or if our climate struggles were much the same as others.  Those shows will start to air next month.

In meantime this piece--looking at Michigan--reinforces much of our conclusions on the shows:  That the degradation we see in our air, water systems, the harmful impact on fish, local agriculture, and the amazing changes to weather patterns are very wide spread, common and strong indicators of a distorted environment.

We'll break this article into 2:

New report assesses current and future climate change

By REBECCA WILLIAMS

You probably remember that extreme weather was not kind to Michigan crops last year.

Frank Szollosi is with the National Wildlife Federation.

“We lost more than 80 percent of our apples and peaches, we lost grapes and cherries. Our cherry farmers saw 90 percent of its crop destroyed because of the unusually warm winter last year followed by hard freezes,” he says.

The federal government has put out a new draft report on how our climate is changing. More than 240 scientists wrote the report.  It’s called the National Climate Assessment.

Agriculture is one of the key messages of their chapter on the Midwest.

Don Scavia is a lead author of the Midwest chapter. He’s the director of the Graham Sustainability Institute at the University of Michigan. The report says in the next few decades, longer growing seasons and rising carbon dioxide levels will increase yields of some crops.

“That could initially be good for agriculture. But then you have to think about what’s happening with precipitation. We’re getting more and more extreme rainfall events and floods in the spring, coupled with a longer, drier summer. So that increase in the frequency of storms and heat waves could actually end up being bad for agriculture,” Scavia says.

He says the agricultural community will also need to find ways to deal with the potential for warmer springs with sudden cold snaps.

Melting ice

The report also notes that ice cover on the Great Lakes has been going down since the 1970's, especially for lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, and Ontario.  

Don Scavia says less ice could mean a longer shipping season. But it could also mean more lake effect snow.

“Because there will be more evaporation off of the Lakes, so initially that increased water vapor will end up as larger snow events and lake effect snow events, but as temperatures warm, they’ll probably turn into rain events,” he explains..."