What Record Low Great Lakes Ice Cover Could Mean For Grand Traverse Bay In 2024

As the calendar page flipped from 2023 to 2024, an alarming bit of Michigan-centric news drew the attention of major publications nationwide: The Great Lakes have never had less ice cover at the start of a year than right now.

Per the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory – and reported widely by everyone from CNN to the Washington Post – just 0.35 percent of the Great Lakes were covered in ice as of New Year’s Day. That’s the smallest amount ever recorded on the first day of the year, falling well below the historical average of around 10 percent. The almost complete lack of ice – including on the waters of Grand Traverse Bay – begs the question: What could 2024 hold for the Traverse City area and its local watershed?

According to Heather Smith, Grand Traverse Baykeeper for the Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay, less ice cover is something most locals have gotten used to. Smith says ice records for West Grand Traverse Bay indicate that the bay froze over between Power Island and Old Mission Peninsula in “84 percent of the years on record, prior to 1980.” (Records for that particular data point date back to the late 1800s.) “But around 1980, we saw a really big shift in our area, and since then, it’s only been about 40 percent of years that the bay has been considered frozen to Power Island,” Smith adds. “So, that really illustrates the reduction of ice cover we’re seeing in the Great Lakes, including right here in our backyard.”

For reference, the Watershed Center last declared the bay frozen in 2019, marking just the sixth time the phenomenon had occurred since 1980. The bay also froze in 2018, and before that, in 2014.

Even given the decline of freeze events on Grand Traverse Bay, though, Smith admits the current numbers are alarming. Limited ice in January doesn’t necessarily mean a freeze is off the table for the whole winter: NOAA scientist James Kessler recently told CNN that even one prolonged blast of cold weather could change the story for winter 2024 (and, based on weather forecasts, that cold blast could be upon us). Still, Smith says locals shouldn’t ignore what the trendlines show: a warming climate in and around the Grand Traverse Bay watershed – with potential far-reaching “ecological, cultural, and social implications.”

“Warmer winter temperatures mean less ice cover, which means more evaporation, which can mean even lower water levels,” Smith says. “Less ice means that our water is going to warm up faster, so we could have warmer waters in the spring and summer months. And warmer waters, while people enjoy them for recreation, can lead to a whole host of things as well. There’s a stronger chance for harmful algal blooms in the Great Lakes, for instance, and warmer water can also present challenging conditions for native cold-water-loving species. And meanwhile, some of our aquatic invasive species have an easier time over-wintering when you have less ice cover and warmer winter temperatures.”

Local fishing enthusiasts should be especially concerned, Smith warns: She tells The Ticker that species like whitefish “appreciate ice cover to protect their eggs from winter storm disturbances.” Meanwhile, research on yellow perch indicates “reduced reproductive success and smaller fish” after winters with low ice cover.

Another big effect of milder winters and limited ice cover? Just 2-3 years after northern Michigan contended with some of its highest water levels ever, Smith says things are swiftly headed in the other direction. While 2024 forecasts from the United States Army Corps of Engineers don’t show Great Lakes water levels dipping “anywhere near our lowest lows,” Smith says the receding waters will still likely bring challenges – and opportunities – this year and beyond.

“When water levels drop, we forget what the highs are like, and then we tend to build structures too close to the water’s edge,” Smith says. “We think, ‘Oh, well I’m 50 feet away from the water’s edge today; there’s no way the water is going to creep that far up!’”

This time around, the Watershed Center is being more proactive in discouraging the kinds of “poor building practices” that turn into cautionary tales when lake levels go back up. Smith says the organization is currently “working with the townships and municipalities within the watershed” to lobby for new best practices for “coastal resiliency.”

“The best practice really is to require structures – whether it’s buildings, or impervious surfaces like a parking lot, or even things like a patio – to be built further back from the shoreline,” Smith explains. “The best practices are 100 or 200 feet [from shore]. But right now, most of our communities only have a setback of 20-50 feet from the ordinary high-water mark of the Great Lakes.”

While Smith says the accelerating fluctuations in water levels are troubling indicators of climate change, they at least come with a silver lining for the Watershed Center: Local decision makers are now uniquely responsive to calls for bigger shoreline setbacks.

"They understand that we're seeing increased variability in water levels, as well as things like increased storminess, and they understand how those things are leading to even more erosion and more property damage along the shorelines," she says. "So, I think our communities are realizing that they need to use these coastal resiliency tools, and at the Watershed Center, we are here to help them through that process.”

Which communities are changing zoning standards to prep for the next round of high water? Smith says the Watershed Center has already helped implement “deeper water’s edge setbacks” in Leelanau Township and is hoping to do the same in East Bay Charter Township.

“East Bay Township is undergoing a zoning review right now, and they’re also doing that visioning work on the US-31 corridor, which they’re calling the Beach District,” Smith says. “As part of that work, they’re deepening the setback to 50 feet. We’d like to see something even deeper, but we applaud any community that is taking any kind of steps toward deeper water’s edge setbacks and more resilient coastline.”

Pictured: West Grand Traverse Bay, photographed on Christmas Day 2023.