Toledo’s Algae Bloom in Line with Climate Projections

A two-day ban on drinking water has been lifted in Toledo, Ohio.  But the toxic algae bloom that led to the ban is still floating around Lake Erie, and ones like it could become more common as the climate continues to change in a warming world.

Nutrients in agricultural runoff is the biggest contributor to algae blooms in Lake Erie.  What brings that runoff from farm fields to the lake is rain, and lots of it.

“It’s a combo of more rainfall; that climate change is predicted to cause more severe rain events.  And more rainfall means more nutrients and higher nutrients mean more toxicity,” Timothy Davis, an ecologist at the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, said.

An increase in heavy rainfall is already being seen throughout the U.S.  The Midwest has seen a 37 percent increase in the amount of rain falling in heavy precipitation events since the late 1950s, the second-highest increase in the U.S. over that period.

Toledo’s Algae Bloom in Line with Climate Projections