Climate Change Has Not Been a Factor in Wisconsin's Algae Blooms

Wednesday, October 6th, 2021 -- 9:01 AM

(WRN) A new study by UW-Madison suggests that global climate change has not been a factor in how many algae blooms Wisconsin has been seeing over the last decade.

Professor Grace Wilkerson says they're interested in the information because those blooms can severely impact the environment. "So, in addition to just getting in the way of our recreation or how we enjoy the lakes, the wonderful lakes we have here in Wisconsin, it has a lot of big implications for how we use those legs as resources."

Professor Wilkerson says the results were surprising. "Only about 11% of lakes were having blooms that were getting significantly worse over the past decade or so, and what really surprised us with actually 16% of lakes, so even more, were getting significantly better in terms of their algae bloom intensity."

Professor Wilkerson says the study's intent was to see if climate change was worsening those blooms, but instead found an improvement in the state's waters. "And so there's a lot more work to be done here in understanding that interaction between that broad-scale and small-scale interaction so we can better manage our freshwater resources."

Wilkerson says it was nice to see the improvements in an area where everyone assumed that climate change was making things worse.

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