A 420-Year Perspective on Winter Lake Erie Levels

Here, we present a 420-year-long winter lake level reconstruction for Lake Erie based primarily on temperature-sensitive tree-ring chronologies from Alaska, Oregon, and California. This well-verified model explains more than 51% of the variance in winter lake levels over a 131-year calibration period (1860-1990) and shows strong decadal fluctuations related to changes in sea surface temperatures in the North Pacific and the North Atlantic, which alternate in terms of their relative influence. Decadal variability is superimposed on a persistent secular lake level rise that began in the mid-1900s coinciding with a growing influence of the Atlantic sector. In the context of the last 420 years, the instrumental period experienced extreme lake levels, with the lowest over the entire record during the Dustbowl and the highest in 2020. Fluctuations in Lake Erie water levels are primarily determined by climate, and their variability greatly impacts the region's infrastructure and ecosystems.