A hotter time for Northeast Ohio?

Climate models are more accurate predicting large-scale, global trends than changes for a particular place. Nevertheless, here are some of the predictions for Ohio and Lake Erie. While it's tempting to paint a rosy scenario of a warmer Cleveland as a beach vacation hotspot, many of the potential changes from global warming are quite troubling.

• Hotter and drier: By 2095, Ohio could have the climate of present-day Arkansas. We could have more extreme heat and droughts, as well as more extreme thunderstorms. The storms could cause more flooding.
• Shrinking Lake Erie: Less winter ice and greater evaporation could cause lake levels to drop nearly three feet by 2090. The receding water line could create opportunities to restore wetland habitats along the shore, but it also could spur additional waterfront development on newly exposed lakebed. Less water volume would mean less dilution for pollution, so water quality could be much worse. More intense storms could produce increased stormwater runoff pollution. Warmer water could favor fish species like smallmouth bass over cool-water species like walleye. Longer summers could lengthen the duration of temperature stratification of the lake, worsening the "dead zone" of oxygen-depleted water. There also could be additional shipping costs, as boats have to reduce their draft and more dredging is required.
• Heat and disease: The increased number of intensely hot days could cause more heat-related deaths (but there will be fewer cold weather deaths). There could be more smog, as heat and sunlight produce more ground-level ozone. Insect-borne diseases could become a more serious problem.
• Agriculture: Some crops might grow faster in a warmer, carbon dioxide-rich environment. But farmers could have to deal with more air pollution (which can damage sensitive crops), intense storms, and more droughts. Insect pests may proliferate under warmer conditions. And livestock may suffer in the heat.

Resources

• Climate Fast Facts: Ohio, US Climate Action Network (August 2009)
• Global Warming: Ohio Impacts (factsheet) - Ohio Environmental Council
• Human Health Impacts of Global Warming on Ohio (factsheet) - The Pew Environmental Group
• Confronting Climate Change in the Midwest: Ohio, Union of Concerned Scientists (July 2009). 
  • State by state look at impacts.
• Regional Climate Impacts - Midwest from the report "Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States" by the U.S. Global Change Research Program (June 2009).
  • A summary of the Midwest Impacts
• Economic Impacts of Climate Change in Ohio by the Center for Integrative Environmental Research (July 2008)
• An Ohio Perspective on Energy and Climate Change. Consortium for Energy, Economics, and the Environment (CE3) at the Ohio University Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs. May 2, 2008.
• Confronting climate change in the Great Lakes region by the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Ecological Society of America (2003)
  • Ohio Summary
• Preparing for Climate Change: The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change in the Great Lakes Region. A report by the Great Lakes Regional Assessment Group for the U.S. Global Change Research Program (October 2000)
• Climate Change and the Economy: Assessing the Costs of Climate Changeg in Ohio by the National Conference of State Legislatures and the Center for Integrative Environmental Research
• The Nature Conservancy in Ohio statement on the challenges of a warming Ohio
• A clear and present danger: The view from Holden Arboretum
• Climate Change: Our Health in the Balance - American Public Health Association

Ohioans will feel the effects of global warming through changes in our weather, our economy and in the plant and animal diversity that makes Ohio an attractive place to live and work. It is clear that change is coming. Each of us must decide how it should be managed, and how much of it can be slowed.
— Denise Franz King, The Nature Conservancy, Ohio Chapter