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Comment by MrRadar | Hacker News Reader

What's going on around the Great Lakes on that map? It looks like most of Michigan has been swallowed by them, significantly more land loss than I would think a 2m rise in water levels would cause. https://i.imgur.com/tdX7vyr.png

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Aren't the Great Lakes somewhat higher than sea level? (At least until Niagara erodes all the up - which will be 50K years or so).

Edit: Lake Michigan is at 176m - which is quite a bit higher than the level seas would reach if all ice melts (which I think is about 90m).

Yes. The map is sensationalist trash. Not to say that global warming won't impact the lakes: The far more likely outcome is depletion, as water diversions considered unthinkable become politically feasible, both within and without the basin. A map like that might as well show the Colorado River shores expanding with sea rise, it would make as much sense (for non-Americans, the Colorado is so heavily diverted to southwestern farms and municipalities that its riverbed is dry, or a trickle, most of the year).

Of course it won't help the narrative when the Lakes right now are near record highs due to lower levels of evaporation and more rain in the autumn months of the past few years (according to Army Corps of Engineers' data that started records in 1918, anyway). These fluctuations aren't uncommon. Last time they were this high was the mid-80s.

But you're right about the political ramifications of where the Great Lakes Compact line gets drawn. Waukesha, WI is one place that comes to mind where their own water supply became inadequate (mostly due to radium levels) and they requested to have access to Lake Michigan's water. My understanding is within a few years, they'll have the infrastructure in place and be able to legally draw from it.

It doesn't take a deep imagination to think of what a few dozen new such situations will do to Michigan let alone the other Lakes.

Yes, the Waukesha diversion shows that if a community is patient and wealthy enough, the lakes are for sale. At the risk that we share sources, https://www.amazon.com/Great-Lakes-Water-Wars/dp/159726637X is great and has a chapter on Waukesha.

Lake Ontario has had record high water levels in 2017 and again in 2019, maybe they think that will get much, MUCH worse? But given the rest of the map, I think it's just bad science.

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