Whats behind Lake Ontarios driest year since 1966?
On Wolfe Island in Lake Ontario, Mark Mattson has always seen water levels rise and fall from his home. But Mattson  the founder of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, a charity that works to protect the watershed  says the recent low water levels spark uncertainty for the lakes future, especially after the International Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Board measured the driest precipitation conditions since 1966 over the last 12 months in Lake Ontario. The River Boards drought monitor maps show abnormally dry to moderate conditions within the Great Lakes basin, which have left Lake Ontarios water levels about 30 centimetres below the average level. Its a bit shocking how low the water is, Mattson said. Bring The Narwhal to Ontario! Weve got big plans to launch an Ontario bureau. Subscribe  The wetlands and marshes around Wolfe Island are dry, and the water levels are lower than he can ever recall seeing before, Mattson explained. Just a few years ago, water was flooding over the banks, onto the grass, even onto the roads. High water levels cause massive wetlands to fill with water in the spring, allowing much of the watersheds wildlife to proliferate. There are fish and birds, its green and full, Mattson said. When theyre dry, like this year, theyre empty brown zones with no water. They seem very dead.  While scientists have recorded similar fluctuations in water levels since record-keeping began in 1918, whats different now is how quickly the region is shifting between the extremes. Between 1998 and 2013, the Great Lakes had low water levels that lasted for 15 years. After that, much of the Great Lakes reached record-highs while Lake Ontarios water levels were higher than normal. By 2017, Lake Ontario water levels hit a record-high at 75.88 metres before reaching a new record two years later in 2019, rising to 75.92 metres. Between 2019 and 2021, Lake Ontarios water levels dropped more than a metre down to 74.7 metres. Environment and Climate Change Canadas senior climatologist Dave Phillips calls this sudden drop a wake-up call.  Theres never been a more dramatic change, Phillips told The Narwhal. In the last decade, Lake Ontario hit record-high water levels but since 2019 those have dropped significantly. Photo: Zarif Ali / Unsplash  Phillips remembers above average high water levels across the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. You were going through several years, 30 to 35 years of these long stretches where levels were traditionally higher when you compare it with the 100-year average, he said. Then, in about the 80s and 90s, and beginning into the 2000s, we went through this period of lower than average levels.  University of Toronto professor Joseph Desloges studies the effects of climate change and human disturbance on geography. From 2012, almost all the five Great Lakes had months [when they] were at their all-time low in 2012, 2013, Desloges said. And then by 2018, 2019, Great Lakes had an all-time high, just within six years. Thats climate change.  As you put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the atmosphere becomes more energetic, Desloges said. What you end up experiencing in a lot of regions is greater variability. So some years are very wet and cold, some years very hot and dry. So that variability becomes extreme.  Thats what climate change is doing, its making weather less predictable, he added. Frank Segnelieks, a water resources engineer for Environment and Climate Change Canada and the Canadian secretary of the River Board, keeps a close eye on the lakes water level, precipitation, seasonal patterns and other indicators. Hes not quite ready to point to climate change as the root cause of the rapidly fluctuating lake levels. When youre in the middle of it, you cant really say distinctively, Seglenieks said. In 10 years, if we keep seeing the swings between wetter temperatures and dryer temperatures you can maybe start to say: Yeah, weve now seen a pattern shift.   Phillips of Environment and Climate Change Canada suggested that the recent extremes affecting the Great Lakes are a sign of things to come. Whereas the relatively stable periods of water levels in past decades allowed for normalcy and consistency in planning human activities, the recent extreme fluctuations not only make it hard to predict what to expect, but make it harder to adapt to conditions. Most of the shoreline near the Greater Toronto Area is protected, but on the American side of Lake Ontario and in the east closer to Kingston, fluctuating water levels can erode the shorelines and introduce a lot of sediment into the lake, which can affect temperature and transmissivity in the water. We promote this thing called adaptive management, to be able to handle all these situations, Seglenieks said, in response to these unpredictable weather patterns. Whether building a pier or a city building, Seglenieks said engineers need to ensure infrastructure is adaptable to all these different conditions and water levels. Whats clear for decision makers and users of the Great Lakes is a lot of challenges are emerging as long stretches of uniform water levels wont be common anymore. Representatives from 241 cities, villages and other jurisdictions along the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River said that climate-related events have forced them to spend $878 million over the past two years, according to a new survey of shoreline communities conducted from March through May 2021 by the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative and the University of Illinois Applied Research Institute. The survey respondents, from Ontario, Quebec and eight U.S. states, also estimated they would need to spend at least $1.94 billion over the next five years to cope with extreme weather and wave action that threatens to cause greater erosion and flooding on the shoreline. At present, low water levels in the St. Lawrence River are also affecting companies accepting imports at the Port of Montreal. While the Socit des alcools du Qubec (SAQ) has low-water fees in their long-term contracts to protect themselves from such fluctuations, other shipbrokers arent happy about rising freight rates, according to a recent report in The Globe and Mail. The St. Lawrence River, which flows out of Lake Ontario, is also experiencing low water levels which are affecting imports in the Port of Montreal. Photo: Samuel Charron / Unsplash  Germany-based Hapag-Lloyd AG is one of the major shipping lines charging a low water surcharge in the St. Lawrence. Its managing director for Canada Wolfgang Schoch told The Globe for every 10 centimetres the water level drops, thats about 3,000 metric tonnes of cargo that needs to be removed from a freighter. To recover the loss of cargo, shipping companies like Hapag charge a surcharge ranging anywhere from $150 to $300 USD for every container. These challenges make for a much shorter planning horizon. I think thats the new norm, you cant depend on what the situation is going to be from one year to the next, where in the past you could and plan your operations accordingly, Seglenieks said. Scientists say the aquatic ecosystem also struggles to adapt to the stress of fluctuating water levels. Theres a smaller habitat for these aquatic biota like fish and aquatic insects. It essentially results in this increased competition and predation pressures, Environmental Defence water policy and governance specialist Michelle Woodhouse said. Low flows can also exacerbate the effects of other environmental stressors like sedimentation, increased nutrients, poor water quality and water extraction. This level of uncertainty and variability should be worrying, Mattson says. We know the impact on navigation, fish habitats, cities, sewage, stormwater, but longer term theres a lot of uncertainty, he said. We have to be resilient and attentive to whats going on.  Banner: While scientists are split as to whether climate change is the root cause for fluctuations in water level, whats clear is decisions makers and users of the Great Lakes will have to adapt quickly to this new reality. Photo: Eduardo Vzquez / Unsplash While scientists are split as to whether climate change is the root cause for fluctuations in water level, whats clear is decisions makers and users of the Great Lakes will have to adapt quickly to this new reality.