In one of our earliest Fact Check videos we looked at the tragedy of the climate-driven drop in Great Lakes water levels. We reviewed the countless pronouncements over the years about how global warming means the Great Lakes would be drying up. And then when water levels soared, the experts promptly rushed to the microphones to blame climate change. Yuk yuk yuk by now you know the joke. Six years later we thought we would check in again on Great Lakes water levels to see if the drop, or surge, or whatever climate change is supposed to be doing, has happened yet. So we went back to NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory to #LookItUp. And we found that, yes, the water is still there and yes it still fluctuates as it always has. Here is Lake Superior over the past century. For the others, see below.
Lakes Michigan and Huron:
Lake Erie:
Lake Ontario:
So there you have it. Next time someone tells you that the climate crisis is causing Great Lakes water levels to go up, down or sideways like never before, you can tell them they have always been variable. And when they don’t believe you, tell them where to #LookItUp.
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#LookItUp: Great Lakes water levels
09 Apr 2025 | Science Notes
Indeed the lakes levels are doing fine. As are the lakes themselves. I’ve been monitoring the water levels of Lake Michigan/Huron from the monthly USACE records for perhaps 20 years. That in includes Georgian Bay which is all part of the same “pond”.
After several years of watching Lake Superior water levels I stopped when I learned its level is controlled to within a rather narrow range by a very old treaty between Canada and the USA administered by the International Joint Commission (IJC). As a result large swings in levels there are minimized. The other 3 are where the action is but their trend cycles haven’t changed except to say that tracking begin in the early 1900s so as time marches on so does the tracking period which is apt to include periodic swings in hi/lo levels not recorded before. That certainly doesn’t mean similar extremes never occurred in the far longer period before record keeping began. In my mind the very same logic applies to any data set which of course includes weather extremes the alarmists use to terrify children.
Thank you, John, excellent data, BTW, I note that looking from west to east, the lake levels seem changing (up or down) in the west first and sometime later the same results show up in Lake Ontario as the water flows out to the Atlantic Ocean through the Saint Lawrence river!
Completely normal fluctuations is all I see in all of the Great Lakes in the last century.Nothing to see here,folx,move on...