It isn't the water levels that are rising - it is the ice.
From the Appleton, WI Post Crescent:
Second icebreaker sought for Great Lakes shipping
A brutal winter that slowed the start of the 2014 shipping season on the Great Lakes has one organization asking Congress for another heavy icebreaker.
The Lake Carriers’ Association said it would like to see a second vessel built to keep shipping lanes open on the lakes during harsh winter conditions. The group is requesting another ship similar to the Marinette Marine Corp.-built U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw.
“I want to stress that Lake Carriers’ Association and our members’ customers deeply appreciate the efforts of the U.S. and Canadian Coast Guards this past ice season,” James H.I. Weakley, president of the association, said in a news release. “It is clear that the ice conditions that prevailed last winter call for a reassessment of both nations’ icebreaking fleets.”
A bit about the economic impact from the Maritime Reporter:
Great Lakes Freeze Cost Economy $705m, 3,800 Jobs
The seemingly glacial ice that brought shipping on the Great Lakes to a virtual standstill last winter cost the economy more than $700 million and nearly 4,000 jobs, the Lake Carriers’ Association (LCA) reported, promting the group to to call for construction of a second heavy icebreaker to partner with the U.S. Coast Guard’s MACKINAW to keep the shipping lanes open in the harshest of conditions.
According to LCA, the winter of 2013/2014 was so brutal that U.S.-flag cargo movement between December 1, 2013 and May 30, 2014, plummeted nearly 7 million tons compared the same period in 2012/2013. At least two steelmakers had to curtail production and some powerplants were extremely low on coal. The limestone trade did not resume in earnest until well into April, and U.S.-flag lakers suffered nearly $6 million in damage trying to resupply customers. Eventually three vessels that had not been scheduled to operate last year were fit out to help overcome the shortfall in deliveries during the ice season, but the industry played catch-up the rest of the year.
More people die from excessive cold than from excessive heat - we need to be seriously thinking about what might happen if we enter another Maunder Minimum. The possibility is there and the temperatures have been cooling for the last eighteen years. (More here, here, and here)
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