Great Lakes Modeling Workshop
FUNDED BY: CANADA WATER AGENCY (CWA) AND THE US NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION (NOAA)
Project Summary
The Great Lakes Modeling Workshop serves as an opportunity to support the binational agreement and priorities laid out in the Climate Change Impacts Annex (A9) of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA). The overall objective of the workshop is to coordinate binational climate change science and share information that Great Lakes resource managers need to proactively address climate change impacts to water quality, with additional ambitions to help:
- Support development or improvement of regional-scale climate models by linking models to Great Lakes chemical, physical and biological models, in order to better understand and predict the impacts of climate change on Great Lakes water quality;
- Promote enhanced monitoring of relevant climate and Great Lakes variables to validate model predictions and understand current climate changes and their impacts; and
- Improve tools to understand and predict the impacts, risks and vulnerabilities associated with climate change.
About the 2025 Workshop
The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement Climate Change Impacts Annex hosted the third Great Lakes Modeling Workshop in June 2025. The 2025 workshop brought together scholars and practitioners in Great Lakes regional climate modeling to share ideas, research, and experiences to advance the state of climate modeling science and applications and explore the establishment of a climate modeling community of practice. Invited speakers delivered updates on emerging topics in lake modeling and climate projections, and time time set aside for attendees to form breakout groups to discuss data gaps and set strategic goals to advance our regional efforts.
The 2025 Great Lakes Modeling Workshop report is available here.
Past Workshops
In 2021, GLISA co-hosted a second Great Lakes Modeling Workshop with support from the NOAA Great Lakes Regional Collaboration Team and Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC). This workshop: 1) reviewed the existing Great Lakes regional climate modeling efforts, including the strengths, limitations, and credibility of climate change projections; 2) shared preliminary results from relevant work and models in Canada and the United States; 3) identified gaps and areas of greatest uncertainty; and, 4) developed recommendations for future work. The 2021 workshop report summarizes discussions and opportunities for climate modelers and practitioners to work together to improve these models through funding, collaboration, and engagement activities. The workshop was held remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2019, GLISA co-hosted the first Great Lakes Modeling Workshop with the Ontario Climate Consortium (OCC) in Ann Arbor (MI). This workshop reviewed existing Great Lakes regional climate modeling efforts, shared preliminary results from relevant studies in Canada and the United States, worked to identify current gaps and uncertainties, and developed recommendations for future work. Results from the workshop are discussed in this report.
GLISA Contribution
- Liaising and coordinating with Annex 9 co-chairs;
- Coordinating the planning of the workshop including facilitating meetings, conducting literature reviews, and drafting and sending invitations;
- Assisting in the facilitation of the workshop sessions;
- Contributing to the development of a final report after the conclusion of the workshop.
Project Partners
- NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL)
- Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC)
- Canada Water Agency (CWA)
- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- University of Wisconsin-Madison
GLISA Contact
Rachel Kelly, Climatologist, [email protected]