Been a little wet here.

Seems like it's cyclical to me.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x222627

I'm saying that every time there's a slight deviation in things like lake levels or precipitation, its automatically jumped on as proof of climate change. But say anything about it and you automatically get labelled as a denier or troll. In years where there is less than normal precipitation, of course the lake levels will drop. As soon as the weather changes to a wetter year or two, it bounces back.

I might agree. However, we have climate extremes all over the place. California may see relief from its extreme drought conditions this winter, but they won't like the result. A monstrous El Nino is brewing and it is likely the state will be drowned in the storms that are coming to its scorched countryside.

Jeeze.

it's always been up and down...but that does not mean that climate change isn't real...just look around you...the weather is way more erratic than it used to be...

I posted a news article.

Welcome to DU!

meant my response to go to OnlinePoker, not you...

You are welcome, eh.

It would be impossible for the water in Lake Michigan to rise without Lake Huron rising by the exact same amount. They exist at the same level.

the lakes on that end?

pour an ounce in Huron and a half ounce runs over the Straits into Michigan. That's exaggerated, obviously but Huron and Michigan rise and fall together.

From Lk Michigan to Huron. I have been at the bottom of the Straits diving and the current heading to Huron is actually very noticeable.

The flow is in the general direction of the St Lawrence river.

Like I said, one ounce is an exaggeration. If you added three feet of water to just Huron, you can bet your ass that there is going to be a hell of a current flowing into Michigan.

I guess we assume that since we've been around an awesome 200 years in some places, keeping records, we know all.

I moved to LA in '91. Drought. It would take a decade to recover. Except for the floods that happened a bit later. The only people that noticed where the weathermen that had managed to hang onto their jobs for a year. Those making the predictions had moved on.

I moved to western New York a bit later. Trees were dying from the drought. It would be years before the water tables recovered. A year later they'd mostly recovered, and 18 months later were fully recovered. That was a small announcement on day in the newspaper.

I moved to Houston and went to put in some landscaping. I looked at the revised FDA zone charts because, well, the others were out of date. It would be warmer, we might get light frosts every few years, so we could use different plants, and should avoid others because they wouldn't take the heat. Not long after that the night time temperature went down to 16 degrees one night, below 20 for a few nights. Come spring, I threw out the dead plants and the revised FDA zoning charts.

Where I lived now we were to have huge water problems. We had a lot of trees die from lack of groundwater--trees 40, 50 feet tall, with roots doing down 20, 30 feet. We'd have trouble with the municipal water supply and had to plan now for a few short years in the future. Um ... not any more.

Climate change does not happen quickly. Natural variation is superimposed on it. There are things we still get wrong--pretty much every prediction of climate change has failed or be "technically accurate" just because the predictions haven't fallen outside the margin of error before the predictions are revised as the theory takes into account more data. There's also a tendency to be a bit excitable, and to try to show we're right using every trick and sleight of hand in the book (which usually comes back to bite us in the ass).

That is why Beverely Country Club at 87th and Western is played upon sand dunes from ancient Lake Michigan. On the Michigan side if heading due west you can see all the old shorelines.

not to give the climate change evidence debate unnecessary air time. The question is that polar refrigeration effect of melting ice caps is temporarily giving us harsh wet winters up north and eventually will stop, pretty dramatically in the large scale of climate changes.
We know what it means for Texas but how about the water base up here? Can we store and protect anything meaningful for the hard times? Of course we can barely keep wolfish hydro-fracking at bay. How long a warm period and what if an Ice Age follows, which I am constantly reminded of in the local topography in the post glacial Finger Lakes region?

These are my limited opinions which I am sure can be handled better by the many better climate educated posters. The questions are extremely important. It's like temporarily enjoying a budget surplus, very much so considering how it will acted(or not) upon.

to hold all that 'runoff'