Integrating federal research on global change and climate change

The Upper Great Lakes Workshop was held May, 1998 at the University of Michigan. The workshop was one of 19 regional workshops held across the US, as part of the National Assessment, sponsored by the USGCRP and the USEPA.

Workshop participants were organized into sector breakout groups and asked:

1. What are their current concerns with regards to climate change?

2. How might climate change impact our lives?

3. What additional information do we need?

4. How do we cope with climate change?

The breakout groups provided the direction for a more rigorous studies of climate change impacts in the Great Lakes region. Ideas and concerns were written on flip charts by rapporteurs, and each sector produced a report that chronicled their discussions:

Climate

Water Ecology

Land Ecology

Agriculture

Infrastructure

Economy

Human Health

Governance and Education

The "Invited Talks" portion of the workshop provided a foundation for understanding some of the complexities and issues of climate change and its potential impacts. The speakers were from various walks of life and presented different points of view. They were chosen because of their knowledge and interest in the in climate change and in the Great Lakes region. The speakers were recorded and transcribed and their talks are available below:

Hart: Benchmarks for Climate Change

Corell: Working Toward a National Assessment 

MacCracken: Global Change and its Effects

Winstanley: Climate Change in the Great Lakes Region

Doering: Making Sense of Climate Change Impacts

Magnuson: Regional Climate Change and Fresh Water Ecology

Noble: Global Warming in Minnesota: Playing With Fire

Mortch: Getting Additional Information

Kitz: Global Climate Change: A Business Model Approach

Scheraga: Coping with Climate Change

Workshop Participants

Workshop Steering Committee