The Great Lakes and Climate Change: How Wisconsin Could Become a Climate Refuge

Traveling to places like California or Florida for beach vacations is common. Moving to the West or East coasts for warmer weather, small beach towns and coastal culture is understandable. But the recent uptick in wildfires, hurricanes and other extreme weather conditions points to two important questions: Given what we know about climate change, could Wisconsin become a climate refuge? And how do the Great Lakes play a role?

“My feeling is, the days of the rustbelt are over,” Val Klump, a professor at UWM who teaches in the School of Freshwater Sciences. “People are going to move to this region and the major reasons they’re going to move here (are) because (of) freshwater, quality of life and there will be jobs as a result.”

Peter Annin, director of the Mary Griggs Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation, researches and writes about the Great Lakes. He said it’s imperative we recognize the urgent need to protect the bodies of water the Midwest covets.

“If those water levels continue to drop, we’re not only going to have a water crisis, but we’re going to have an energy crisis and we potentially could have serious food disruptions throughout the country,” Annin said.

Jennifer Caddick, vice president of communications and engagement at the Alliance for the Great Lakes, said the lakes are already looked at as an asset. 

“We know that the Great Lakes region is starting to be seen by many as a climate refuge because of our moderate climate and because of our abundance of freshwater,” Caddick said.

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A climate refuge is a place that offers people protection from natural disasters, extreme weather or intense thermal exposure. Wisconsin can offer relief from climate change’s impact as residents don’t experience extreme weather like places outside of the Midwest. And to some extent, Lake Michigan protects Wisconsin from natural disasters like tornados. The closer people are to the lake, the cooler the temperatures get. The lake keeps warm air from mixing with cool air which creates tornados. 

“This resource is undeniably critical to the future of our region and also just to humans because we all need water to live,” Caddick said. “So having this amount in our backyards puts a really big responsibility on us as people who live around the Great Lakes region to protect it for current and future generations.”

Annin said while climate change may be hurting Wisconsin and the Great Lakes, it’s going to get much worse elsewhere in the country. He said the areas surrounding smaller resources like Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which 40 million people depend on, are experiencing record-breaking lows in water levels.

While teaching a seminar class of seven students a few years ago, Annin said he had two students who chose to move to Wisconsin to get away from climate stress. One of the students left Colorado due to water and fire safety concerns, and the other left California.

My feeling is, the days of the rustbelt are over.

Val Klump, School of Freshwater Sciences professor

Klump said the efforts to move from restoration to protection will be important in the next couple years. While cleaning up past mistakes is important, it’s also essential to work on continued protection of the lakes.

“Someone said, ‘We don’t inherit the lake from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children,’” Klump said. “So that’s what I mean when I say we need to shift our focus from restoring the system to actually protecting the system.”

The Great Lakes have not escaped the impacts of climate change. Together, the five bodies of water contain 90% of the nation’s surface freshwater and 20% of the world’s. That means it’s a lot easier to make into drinking water, so that’s an invaluable resource, especially given the droughts in places in the U.S. like California.

Theresa Nemetz, founder and chief experience officer at Milwaukee Food & City Tours, said Great Lakes cruises have become more popular in recent years. She said not only are more people visiting Milwaukee and the Great Lakes area, but they find reasons to come back.

“One of the most attractive things is the natural beauty of the Great Lakes,” Nemetz said. “(Visitors) say, ‘I have never considered coming to Milwaukee before, but this is an amazing city.’ We started hearing a few years ago when the cruises were first starting (that) people (were) taking longer vacations in Milwaukee.”

Nemetz said the cruises help smaller communities around the Great Lakes filter millions of dollars into areas that normally wouldn’t get tourism. Showing off their local businesses also helps build pride in these places. Kayaking and fossil hunting are just a few of the activities the cruises and day trips offer customers.

Milwaukee was recently named on the National Geographic’s 2023 list of destinations for the year ahead. Of their five categories (community, nature, culture, family and adventure), Milwaukee was listed under “Community: Where conservation benefits everyone.” The article sheds a light on the cities breweries and sports attractions, as well as the “… vibrant Great Lakes.” Milwaukee shares this accolade alongside four other places: Karpathos, Greece in the Dodecanese Islands, Alberta, Canada, Laos and Ghana.

Just announced! @NatGeoTravel named Milwaukee as one of the “Best of the World” for 2023! Milwaukee is one of only 25 such destinations, and one of only five in the United States.

Read why Milwaukee is one of the world's best destinations to travel to. https://t.co/CxZGKZmGYA

— VISIT Milwaukee (@visitmilwaukee) October 26, 2022

Annin thinks that part of protecting the system will be the way we prepare for the possible influx of people moving to the Great Lakes region. And he said infrastructure issues precede climate change; sewage overflow into the lakes and basement flooding are common issues.

“Urban planners think on decadal scales,” Annin said. “I have interviewed and talked to landscape architects and planning professionals, and we’re just kind of starting these conversations about what should this look like, how should we be planning?”

One of the impacts of climate change that scientists are able to measure right now is the increase in algal blooms. This not only harms the wildlife living in and around the lakes, but it also can impact humans. During warmer months, it’s important to check daily algal bloom reports before going in the water. When in doubt, stay out!

Caddick said the list of climate change impacts is steadily growing.

“We are starting to see some climate related impact related to water level fluctuations, increased storm events, where we get a significant amount of rain in a short period of time,” Caddick said.

Klump said scientists are seeing higher highs and lower lows in recent water levels. He said future projections see these extremes becoming a challenge, calling it “the worse of both worlds.” Klump said even more changes are expected. 

“The growing season will increase,” Klump said. “The onset of summer (and) the onset of full stratification of the lake (means) the surface water warms up.”

Klump is explaining a phenomenon known as stratification that not only hurts the organisms living in bodies of water but also, in places like the Great Lakes, exacerbates the algal bloom problem. When the surface water warms up, the colder water settles to the bottom of the lake. The warmer water acts as a cap on the water and the bottom water is no longer exposed to the atmosphere. That means that the oxygen present initially must last until the water is no longer in a stratification period. Klump said these harmful algal blooms tend to do better in warm environments.

Caddick said warming temperatures prove difficult for the wildlife that have known the Great Lakes to be their home for centuries.

“Climate change is impacting native species, it’s warming the temperature of the Great Lakes, which is changing what species can and cannot live in the lake(s),” she said.

Eric Brown, senior advisor for external relations at the Great Lakes Commission, said climate change conversations are becoming more important.

“I think what we’ve seen most recently, which really has spurred more activity in the GLC with respect to climate change is the high-water levels, and the flooding, and loss of property and threat to life and livelihood,” Brown said. “Those have really spurred more urgent action with respect to dealing with the impacts of climate change.”

One of the harder parts of dealing with climate change is that scientists can’t know exactly what problems to prepare for. Ninety percent of our nation’s surface freshwater hasn’t been challenged in the way it’s expected in the coming years, so knowing what exactly to expect is impossible. But Klump said there are ways around that as people look to protect the lakes.

“The key to understanding what’s happening in the Great Lakes is understanding how a system works, how it functions,” Klump said. “Once you understand the basic process, and we’re a long way from that, we need to develop a model and a system.”

These models would require a lot of research. And according to Kelli Paige, CEO of the Great Lakes Observing System, that research is not up to date.

“It’s so imperative that we take the time to expand our monitoring efforts, to expand our research efforts, invest more in the human resources necessary to do the science and the modeling and the predictive forecasting,” Paige said. “And I think not even so much from a natural resource management perspective, but also from a social science perspective because there’s obviously going to be a greater strain to our natural resources.”

Brown said the lakes support a $6 trillion economy for about 40 million people in the U.S. and Canada. Agriculture and fishing, transportation and warehousing, tourism, science and engineering and mining make up just some of the jobs available. Opportunities like these could help Wisconsin become a hot spot for people looking to relocate due to climate change.