As July Ends, All Great Lakes Water Temps At Or Near Record Highs - 30-Year Temperature Record

[hatrack]

MINNEAPOLIS — Don Kermeen grew up along the shores of Lake Superior, and early on he learned a lesson about the mighty lake: “For most of the year, you don’t swim in it unless you’re in a wetsuit.”

Not this summer. Superior and the four other Great Lakes have been at or near record high temperatures for the 30 years such measurements have been taken — and there’s still a month left before the lakes typically hit their warmest levels of the year.

“It’s been awesome,” Kermeen, the co-owner of Superior Shores Resort in Ontonagon, Mich., along Superior’s southern shore, said this week. “I think every single guest I had yesterday was out swimming. I don’t care if they were a kid or in their 60s, they were out in that water.”

A more swimmable Lake Superior may be good for tourism, but the effect on everything from fishing to wildlife habitat to water level may be bad. And, while scientists understand why the lakes are warmer this summer, they don’t know if it’s a blip or the new normal. “I think in general, we don’t like to see it, because we’re not sure if it’s a good thing for the lakes,” said Tom Gorenflo, tribal fisheries manager for the Chippewa-Ottawa Resource Authority in Sault St. Marie, Mich. “Everybody is worried about it, and wondering if it does a fit a larger pattern of global warming, glaciers melting in Alaska and the like.”

EDIT

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2010/07/warmer_great_lakes_nice_for_a.html

[msongs]

1. zebra mussels, lampreys, and chinese carp will probably love the warmer water

[OnlinePoker]

2. On the positive side, every one of the lakes is just about bang on their average water level.

I remember a couple of years ago the panic that the lakes were drying out, but nature brought them back to where they're supposed to be.

[sfwriter]

3. Realisticallly, they will be full to overflowing...

Long term, warmer air holds more water. It holds about 5% more now than when I was a kid, so more torrential rains.