Climate Change In Michigan

Water changing the face of the Earth

Many things change the surface of the earth, and one of those things is water. The course of rivers and creation of lakes can be attributed to receding glaciers, and rivers have made changes to landscapes from steep mountains to flat floodplains. As well as humans creating many changes in the flow and direction of rivers and creation and draining of lakes. Some changes happen very rapidly, such as building a dam and creating a lake within a short period of time. Some changes happen over thousands of years, such as glacial movement. Michigan is a unique place in the world, surrounded by glacially carved lakes and dotted all over with lakes, rivers, and bogs. All of these forces have changed the surface
Glaciers did have a large impact on the surface of Michigan over thousands of years by eroding land from one area and transporting it somewhere else to deposit. There are many examples within Michigan alone of glacial movement. Drumlins, formed by receding and then advancing glaciers, scrape and pushed elongated hills together on the surface of the earth. This erosion/deposit can be seen in Iron Mountain, Michigan (Wilson, p.6). Other landforms created by glaciers are moraines, eskers, and kames. Moraines occur when the ice is melting at an equal rate of the glacier advancing, and so dumping rocks, soil, debris taken from other areas the glacier has moved over, and even ice chunks fall off and can become buried under the other materials (Wilson, p. 6). So moraines are characterized by a rugged terrain often with high reliefs. When the ice melts, this creates depressions and makes for even more rugged area. In Michigan, this land form is
With advancements in sea and water travel, and settling nearby water sources has inspired innovation in water engineering, and thus creating many changes in Michigan’s water ways. One of the most notable examples in Michigan is the Soo Locks. The locks control the flow of water out of Lake Superior in order to transport freighters and other vessels between the elevation changes between the lakes. This changed the flow of the water itself, as well as how the water transports and deposits sediments. Another local example of how humans greatly impact the local water flow is the dam on the Dead River. This creates a very visual change, as it created the lake at Tourist Park. There are also methods by which humans have tried to prevent costal erosion, solid walls that only work for the coast behind the wall, as well as groins; a set of posts perpendicular to the shore (Costal Erosion). This has its drawbacks as well, because it doesn’t address why erosion on the coast is happening in the first place. Jetties are another human invention to prevent coast erosion and also to keep mouth waters deep enough for vessels. This only prevents erosion from one side, and sand is still lost permanently from the system when it’s washed into deeper waters (Costal Erosion). These kinds of human-induced changes are just the tip of the glacier, and have a habit of interrupting the balance that