How Climate Change will affect Sleeping Bear Dunes
By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor
Read our related story “Banging the drum for Climate Change action“.
On August 21, scientist Lukas Bell-Dereske gave a public presentation to a packed house at the Sleeping Bear Dunes Visitor Center in Empire that offered a window into how climate change will affect our cherished National Park. (Watch his PowerPoint presentation here:Climate Change in the Great Lakes Dunes -SLBNP Talk v2) The Michigan native, and PhD student at the University of New Mexico Department of Biology, spent the previous two summers simulating heavy rain events at Good Harbor beach (between Glen Arbor and Leland) and in the Leelanau State Park near Northport by using an irrigation system to pump large pulses of water into the fragile dune ecosystems.
Scientists predict that climate change will cause more extreme weather events and exacerbate dangerous conditions around the world—wetter snowstorms in some parts, desertification in others, more tsunamis in the Pacific Islands, and droughts in the American West. Critical for Sleeping Bear, scientists predict more potentially damaging heavy rain events during the Northern Michigan growing season, May 15-Sept. 15. A recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report predicts that precipitation will increase by more than 3 percent for every 1 degree (Celcius) change in temperature. A global temperature rise by 3-5 degrees by 2100, could mean a 20-40 percent increase in spring and summer precipitation in Leelanau County.
How will those torrential downpours affect Sleeping Bear? Bell-Dereske explained that the Dunes form an important storm blanket for inland ecosystems, and help beach grasses hold soil. His test trials at Good Harbor and Leelanau State Park had a negative effect on the biomass production of those plants and could ultimately change the composition of the plant communities.
Bell-Dereske will return next summer to resume his study of climate change’s likely impacts on the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking for politicians and energy barons as climate activists call out for industrialized nations to reduce their use of fossil fuels that cause climate change.
