Global Warming at Home
With the first real snow of the season hitting Western New York, it may seem ironic to discuss global warming, but it’s a real phenomenon. Global warming won’t stop snow from falling in Buffalo, but it is, and will continue, to change the climate and Lake to which we are accustomed.
Often when you hear about impacts of global warming, the focus lies on the oceans’ coast and areas predicted to disappear below sea level as polar ice caps melt and the oceans warm. We’ve already witnessed the massive losses in a city like New Orleans when water levels rise temporarily, and so such predictions can really stick in your mind. And we’ve heard speculation about what could happen to countries that lies entirely below the sea level like the Netherlands or Bangladesh. But what you don’t hear about as often is what will happen to the giant body of water here in Western New York. In what ways could global warming really affect Lake Erie?
According to meteorologists and scientists, Lake Erie could look very different in the next one hundred years:
- water levels could drop as much as 3-6 feet due to increased evaporation from higher temperatures in the summer and less ice cover to stop evaporation in the winter
- more heavy rain events and less heavy snow events are likely
- water quality could decline because of increased runoff during the increased frequency of heavy rains
- a decline in cold water fish because of an increase in water temperature
- increased release of contamination in sediments due to increased solubility in warmer water
- a decrease in surface area of 15%, which could lead to a 25% decrease in hydroelectric power production from the New York State Power Authority
- with water levels decreasing, an increase in exposed lands that were formerly submerged under Lake Erie’s waters
- Increased expenses to maintain or move ports, harbors and water intake pipes.
While these are all possible consequences of the changes in the earth’s global climate patterns, they raise very interesting questions that our region has not had to deal with before. How will we be able to deal with more frequent heavy rain storms with our current outdated and inadequate sewer system? Who will own submerged land that is exposed if water levels drop? How can we change our energy production and use to stop climate change from getting worse? How will we adapt to the changes that are happening?
This post is not intended to focus on the doom and gloom of global but to continue a conversation that has already begun across the globe and here in our city. In the following months, Great Lakes United will explore issues of global warming and what can be done by our city and ourselves to address this reality.
Photo caption: “Low water levels which have been sporadically seen at public boat ramps in Lake Michigan and Lake Erie due to events like an extremely dry summer or a seiche, are predicted to become commonplace in the Great Lakes due to widespread global warming.”
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Comment Options
crisa
My 2nd attempt to comment:
It is frightening to wonder what the human population will increase to on earth in 100 years.
Even more frightening is that humanity will have wiped itself out by 100 more years!
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david
Based on an Atlantic Monthly article that appeared last year - by Buffalo native and Brookings Institution fellow, Gregg Easterbrook - I posted Buffalo - A Convenient Truth.
Interesting take on Buffalo's future competitive advantage.
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BuffaloBloviator
I’m glad to see that the Great Lakes United can discuss climate change without alluding to the controversial theory of “man-made” climate change.
Thank you.
Most people who are not convinced by this theory (me included) normally sit back silently because it isn’t worth the grief one faces for expressing honest opinions on certain politically charged issues. The problem is, when individuals are intimidated to speak up, they sit back and watch much more than just the shorelines gradually being eroded away.
I am not convinced that global warming is man-made and neither does a "consensus" of over 300 scientists who risked black balling by speaking an opinion which they believe to be the truth.
Any time there is as “urgent” a movement as this one, which discourages dialog, which inculcates students with lectures claiming that this theory is established fact, which attempts to create villains and divisions, which not coincidentally achieves the ideological goals of one political party to the exclusion of the other, it raises a red flag to me and many others.
When I am being told to have a religious like faith in this theory, then count me as an agnostic.
As far as nature trends and weather patterns go, I think that it is a great idea to think and plan for adaptation and success. Two things that Buffalo has always been best at.
I salute the Great Lakes United organization for bucking the trend and for allowing every individual a chance to relate to this issue without the more commonly found and off-putting political machinations.
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Bufago
Too bad we will all be dead and never know for sure how much BS all this global warming stuff is. It pretty much got way hotter after the last fu*&^ng ice age - cave man say "earth paradise now, me live in palm springs."
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RobH
Unless of course, the cooling trend in place since 2002 continues. In which case, nevermind.
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Buffalo21stcentury
Yet another stupid story on global warming from Great Lakes United. When is Buffalo Rising going to stop engaging in this left wing conspiracy.
1) Warming is coming from the sun...Mars is heating up and so is Jupiter. There are no humans on those plants causing pollution.
2) The Great Lakes are a closed ecosystem that is completely managed by humans where water is regulated at Chicago which can regulate outflow via a Canal to the Mississippi and regulated again via the Niagara River and the St Lawrence.
The only lake levels dropping are in Lake Superior and Lake Huron and that is because the US Army Corps of Engineers blasted the underwater stone in the Detroit River so Ocean Ships via the Welland Canal could pass into Superior and Huron. Blasting away that bedrock and increasing the depth has now increased the outflow of those lakes and the flow must now be restricted either by restricting the width of the river or by some sort of lock system.
Nothing will happen in the future to the Great Lakes because outflow can always be restricted at the Detroit River, the Niagara River and the St Lawrence River.
SO PLEASE NO MORE FEAR TACTICS ON THE GREAT LAKES. IF YOU WANT A GOOD CAUSE THEN PLEASE TALK ABOUT INVASIVE SPECIES, BRINGING BACK THE BLUE PIKE AND RESTORING THE INCREDIBLE POTENTIAL OF THE GREAT LAKES FISHERIES WHICH COLLAPSED IN THE 50S AND NOW HAVE OXYGEN DEAD ZONES....YES THE LAKES ARE CLEANER BUT THEIR STILL DEAD!
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Jolopy
This is what stuck out from that article to me. You have to admit its kinda true. Blogger Derek J. Punaro 12:06 PM, March 14, 2007
Ah ha! Finally proof that global warming is a sham! The logic works something like this...
If something good is in Buffalo's future > it surely won't happen.
Global warming is good for Buffalo's future.
Therefore, global warming won't happen.
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meanoldman
global warming is just a natural cycle the planet is going through. lets not forget it has been here for billions of years. personally i think man has a lot of nerve to even think he has the ability to do anything to effect the natural course of the evolution of its life. SAVE THE PLANET!! how big can mans ego get? the earth will do whatever it wants, and there is nothing we can do to effect the outcome IT CHOOSES FOR US!! live your tiny meaningless little life, and hope earth doesn't burp and wipe humans off it's face to save itself!!!!!
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Colin
Man-made global warming isn't controversial. Even the Bush administration finally owned up to the truth. Perhaps local republicans like bloviator haven't gotten the memo.
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meanoldman
the bush administration! they have the collective intelligence of a bag of hammers!
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blackrocklifer
Bloviator- 300 scientists, Wow, thats like 1% of the total, The other 99% must be retarded to believe in Global Warming.
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meanoldman
global warming is definitely happening. is the cause really man? i think not! the other 99% aren't retarded just wrong.
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Buffalo21stcentury
The Great Lakes are a closed ecosystem that is completely managed by humans where water is regulated at Chicago which can regulate outflow via a Canal to the Mississippi and regulated again via the Niagara River and the St Lawrence. The only lake levels dropping are in Lake Superior and Lake Huron and that is because the US Army Corps of Engineers blasted the underwater stone in the Detroit River so Ocean Ships via the Welland Canal could pass into Superior and Huron. Blasting away that bedrock and increasing the depth has now increased the outflow of those lakes and the flow must now be restricted either by restricting the width of the river or by some sort of lock system. Nothing will happen in the future to the Great Lakes because outflow can always be restricted at the Detroit River, the Niagara River and the St Lawrence River.
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Colin
"is the cause really man? i think not!"
Well then -- case closed!
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xosder
Regarding the hydroelectic power, the Niagara River currently provides 200,000 cubic feet of water per second to the Canadian and NY Power Authorities. Fifty percent of the water is captured by these entities for power generation, while the remainder spills over the falls for tourisits and jumpers. So how can a 15% reduction in lake surface area correspond to a 25% reduction in power generation when we are currently only utilizing roughly half the energy available ?
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sbrof
yea.. left wing conspiracy.. it Amazes me how we no longer listen or value the work of SCIENTISTS... whether they are in the US or China everyone agrees that the rate in which the Earth has been warming cannot be attributed to natural forces. Sure there are some, but this is a totally unprecedented change.
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