Summary Climate Information

The impacts of climate change already are, and continue to be, deep and widespread in the Great Lakes region. Rising temperatures, increasing precipitation and extreme events, and longer frost-free seasons are already affecting agriculture, infrastructure, natural resources, public health, and vulnerable populations in cities and tribes. Below GLISA provides information about the climate change impacts affecting the region in a number of formats. 

Climate Change in the Great Lakes Region

GLISA summarized the impacts of climate change in the Great Lakes region into a two-page Executive Summary factsheet. The findings come from peer-reviewed publications, and the references to the summary points are available here.

The factsheet is available here.

Annual Climate Trends and Impacts Summary for the Great Lakes Basin

Coordinated by a partnership between climate services organizations in the U.S. and Canada, this product provides a synthesis report summarizing the previous years’ climate trends, events, new research, assessments, and related activities in the Great Lakes Region. This product is a contribution to the U.S.-Canada Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, through Annex 9 on Climate Change Impacts, and to the national climate assessment processes in the U.S. and Canada.

Quarterly reports for each season developed by the Midwestern Regional Climate Center are available here.

 

Climate Hazards and Impacts in the Great Lakes

A short summary document describing climate threats in the Great Lakes region and how climate change might amplify hazards and risk in the future. Intended to be informative for hazard mitigation planning, covering FEMA hazards such as heat, flooding, winter weather, drought, severe weather, and wildfire.

Climate Change in The Great Lakes Region Presentation

This presentation discusses the major climate changes and potential impacts facing the region along with frequently requested figures and visuals.  The presentation slide deck is available here.

This presentation is provided by GLISA free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes. If you intend to present or display material from this presentation publicly, please notify GLISA at GLISA-info@umich.edu. With advanced notice, GLISA staff will attempt to provide these slides or other resources in a format that best fits your needs.

 

Great Lakes Regional Climate Change Maps

GLISA created regional maps of projected climate changes from analyses provided by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Nelson Institute Center for Climatic Research. We present the maps as an overall regional consensus of the ensemble average for temperature and precipitation projections.

National Climate Assessment: Midwest and Northeast Regional Reports

At the request of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, GLISA and the National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment formed a Midwest regional team to provide technical input to the National Climate Assessment. Read and download the Midwest Technical Input Report or the Midwest and Northeast Regional Chapters of the National Climate Assessment.

Mapping Demographics and Climate Change

Through a partnership of the GLAA-C project with Headwaters Economics, GLISA contributed to the development of an interactive utility that demonstrates how social and economic characteristics of the Great Lakes Region are impacted by regionally specific changes in climate.