Scientist says climate change creeping closer to the BWCA 
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ELY – The future of Ely’s natural areas, specifically the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, is increasingly threatened by climate change and the proliferation of invasive species.
Dr. Lee Frelich, the director of the University of Minnesota Center for Forest Ecology, spoke about this threat at Tuesday Group here this week. His extensive research, and that of his graduate students, has been conducted right here in Ely’s backyard in the BWCA and the Superior National Forest.
And his conclusions are not good.
“We are on the very southern edge of the boreal forest, which makes Minnesota a very special place in the lower 48 states,” Frelich said.
He paid tribute to four scientists who were involved in groundbreaking work on climate change over the last 200 years.
One of those, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius, who lived into the early 1900s, was best known for his works with salts and electrical conduction. “But his real interest was in climate change and the role of carbon dioxide in climate change,” Frelich said. “He made the first calculations and projections on how the climate would change if we doubled C02 and published those results in 1896, predating Al Gore by eight or nine decades.”
He called Arrhenius “the real father” of global warming. “I don’t know how he did those calculations without computers, but one thing I am sure of is that all Swedes are a hundred years ahead of the rest of the world,” he said. “Actually, all Scandinavians are advanced.”
The earth has been in a natural cooling period for the past 5,000 years “But just in the last several decades that trend has reversed and we are now warmer than were some 6,000 years ago,” he said.
He gave numerous examples of climate change effects
“Cherry trees don’t lie. The blooming of cherry trees in Japan has gotten earlier and earlier in the past few decades in response to a warmer client,” he said.
The mean world temperature has increased every year since 1880 to 2014. “We are on track to set the record again this year quite easily,” he said.
Just a small percentage of the world was colder than average last year, including the eastern United States. “We may have been colder than average one year, but some other year we will be much warmer than average.”
In the future, high CO2 emissions in the atmosphere will lead to increased summer temperatures of 12 to 13 degrees. “If nothing is done to reduce these levels, it will be business as usual,” Frelich said. “If we cut emissions by 75 or 80 percent over the next several decades, we will only warm up about five degrees. If you wanted to move to Nebraska, don’t bother, Nebraska is coming here.”
He predicts increased temperatures will shift the range of trees by about 300 miles. Balsam fir, white spruce and paper birch are examples of boreal trees. Temperate species are red maple, sugar maple and oak. “Minnesota is right on the edge of these zones so we will be very sensitive to a changing climate because of that,” he said.
In addition, to higher temperatures, Frelich predicts more variation in temperatures. “The jet stream is starting to do some pretty weird things compared to what it used to do,” he said. “As the climate warms, the jet stream is starting to meander more. It is blowing more slowly, allowing it to meander more, which means big ridges and big troughs and these patterns are sticking for more months at a time.”
He recalled in 2012 when it was much warmer than average for an extended time, and in 2013 when it was colder than average. “We can expect more variability,” he said. “I never thought I would live to see magnolias bloom in March in Minnesota.”
“If were to get two springs in a row like in 2012, the boreal conifers, like white spruce, would be dead. The spring of 2012 could be an average spring by 2090,” he said.
Several of Frelich’s graduate students have conducted extensive climate change research on various topics.
The balance between precipitation and evaporation will be the driving force in changes to the wilderness of northern Minnesota. “If there is more evaporation than precipitation, you get grasslands. If there is an excess of rainfall over evaporation, you get forests,” Frelich said. “The prairie-forest border is set by that balance.”
Will the prairie-forest border move enough to hit the BWCA? “I think it will. If we have the business-as-usual scenario, it will shift about 300 miles to about Thunder Bay,” he said. “The Boundary Waters will be right at the prairie-forest border.”
He predicted higher drought frequencies due to variations in the jet stream, insect outbreaks, more wind and more fire.
Frelich said earthworms are the “master” invasive species. “We have no native earthworms in Minnesota. He predicted “global worming” as well as global warming. “Worms are invasive everywhere in the world,” he said.
He said earthworms can alter ecosystems and change the soil structure. “Believe it or not, they warm up the soil all by themselves and that will contribute to the warming of the climate. Soil temperatures are perhaps more important to trees than air temperature.”
Deer populations will also increase in northern Minnesota as the climate warms. “There were very few deer here originally because the climate was too cold,” he said. “Deer are also regulated by wolves to some extent. If you have fewer wolves you have a lot of deer and the deer eat the trilliums and orchids and you end up with a lot of ferns in the forest. Deer are smart enough not to live in the middle of a wolf pack territory. There are huge differences in the number of deer across the landscape,” he said.
Research is showing that temperate tree species are invading the boreal forest in northern Minnesota, he said. “Temperatures have warmed up enough to allow maple and oak to invade, but not enough to kill boreal trees,” he said. “Red maple is everywhere in the Boundary Waters now. You better learn to love red maple; there is going to be a lot of it in your future.”
Emerald ash borers die in temperatures of minus 30. “Ash trees up here are pretty safe until the winters warm up enough when it doesn’t get that cold. Who knows in a couple of decades?”
While in Ely this week, Frelich, along with
local environmentalist Becky Rom 
, also discussed sulfide-ore mining impacts on the BWCA ecosystem, and conducted a hike along the Dry Lake Trail to discuss the evolving forest ecosystem.
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