Chicago Faces its Own Climate Challenges

Although it "stands a half-continent away from the threat of surging ocean levels" and "hugs the shores of one of the grandest expanses of freshwater in the world," writes Dan Egan, Chicago is not immune from threats caused by climate change. Built on a swamp, the city faces the looming threat of rising water levels in Lake Michigan. High-rise buildings on the edge of Lake Superior, says Josh Ellis, former vice president of Chicago's Metropolitan Planning Council, are "just teetering on the edge of the lake" with "water lapping at their foundations."

"Lake Michigan’s water level has historically risen or fallen by just a matter of inches over the course of a year, swelling in summer following the spring snowmelt and falling off in winter. Bigger oscillations, a few feet up or down from the average, also took place in slow, almost rhythmic cycles unfolding over the course of decades." But "[i]n 2013, Lake Michigan plunged to a low not seen since record-keeping began in the mid-1800s, wreaking havoc across the Midwest." Then, "[j]ust a year later, in 2014, the lake started climbing at a stunning rate, ultimately setting a record summertime high in 2020 before drought took hold and water levels started plunging again."

This pattern is "threatening to upend centuries of relative stability along the Great Lakes’ 10,000 miles of shoreline, including the 22 miles that define Chicago’s eastern edge," writes Egan. "Beginning in fall 2019, a series of storms ravaged the neighborhoods that pocket Chicago’s mostly public shoreline. Nowhere has the lake been more menacing to lakefront property owners than the working-class neighborhood along South Shore Drive, about 10 miles south of downtown." As these extremes intensify, "the speed and uncertainty of the changes underscore how Chicago, in some crucial ways, is perhaps more immediately exposed to the dangers of global warming than cities on the ocean."