Topic > Declining water levels in the Great Lakes - 1071

As global temperatures and ocean levels rise, the water levels in the Great Lakes continue to fall. While lakes reached their lowest level in world history in 2012, society continues to ignore the massive catastrophe that lies ahead. Because the Great Lakes constitute the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth and are responsible for approximately 21% of Earth's freshwater supply, this issue is becoming one of the largest environmental and economic problems facing our modern world. face. The effects of this problem include the destruction of animal habitats and an important economic market; shipping. Water levels in the Great Lakes have dropped over the past fourteen years, but it wasn't until boats scraped the bottom of Lake Huron that people began to notice. This dire environmental problem has been dubbed a long-term cycle of excessive evaporation and insufficient precipitation to replenish lakes. Keith Kompoltowicz, chief of watershed hydrology for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Detroit, has been tracking this problem for a decade and has made surprising discoveries, as in 2012, he found that Lake water levels Michigan and Lake Huron rose only four inches after winter, while the lakes were regularly recorded gaining a foot of water after the winter season ended. This amount of added water is not enough to maintain an adequate level during the hot, dry summer seasons that evaporate much water from the Great Lakes. While some scientists say this is just a cycle that will adapt naturally, most experts who have studied this phenomenon, like Kompoltwicz, would agree that the problem has gone too far to be properly corrected. As the largest freshwater system on the planet, it extends... center of map......//www.epa.gov/gliindicators/water/oxygenb.html>Mitchell, J. (n.d.). Down the drain: the incredible shrinking of the Great Lakes. National geographic. Retrieved January 13, 2014, from Pearson, M. (2013, January 17). New low water levels for the Great Lakes could dry up local economies. CNN. Retrieved January 13, 2014, from http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/13/us/great-lakes-low-water/Rodman, K. (2013, July 3). United States. AccuWeather. Retrieved January 13, 2014, from http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/concerns-mount-as-great-lake-l/14834545Schwartz, J. (2013, June 10). Water levels drop in the Great Lakes, putting a strain on navigation. The New York Times. Retrieved January 13, 2014, from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/us/great-lakes-shipping-suffers-as-water-levels-fall.html?_r=1&