At the end of the meeting held to discuss how changing climate might affect tourism on the North Shore, Scott Harrison (right front) of Lutsen Resort asked lead presenter, Dr. Mae Davenport several questions about the two-year study. Most people in attendance owned tourism-related businesses and were very interested in learning what might happen should temperatures on the North Shore continue to warm, and how that trend could affect their business practices.
As presenters from the North Shore Climate Readiness (NSCR) group spoke to about 30 people at a workshop at Lutsen Resort, a hard rain pelted the windows and ate away at the scant snow left on the ground.
Strange weather for March 15, but more like it is coming our way, said Mae Davenport, Ph.D., associate professor, director for changing landscapes at the University of Minnesota.
Hailing from the University of Minnesota, North Carolina State University and Carleton College, the NSCR project team took part in a two-year study to determine how changing climate might affect tourism on the North Shore.
And tourism is what drives the economic engine of the North Shore. With 1 to 1.3 million visitors to the area in the summer spending on average $220 each, the study estimated the North Shore economy receives $220-$286 million in tourism dollars.
The goal of the NSCR program was three-fold: To assess the capacity of the local communities to adapt to climatic conditions; to determine the risks of nature-based recreation resources and tourism destinations using hydro climatic modeling, past visitation and on-site visitor surveys and finally, to identify scientifically-grounded recommendations to be used by community planners, natural resource managers, and elected officials.
A mix of good and bad news
It was a mix of good news, bad news. Using climate models developed by Kerry Holmberg, M.S., Bruce Wilson, Ph.D., and John Nieber, Ph.D. over the next 50 years warmer summers are predicted which some surveyed visitors found positive. However, on the downside, when data gleaned from 2002-2014 visits to North Shore state parks was examined, short-term heat waves, increased risk of wild fires, flooding, and greater precipitation were found to decrease visits to the area
Dr. Wilson said the climate model they used was somewhat limited, with 30 years of weather related data used to base their predictions, still, he said all indications are that within the next 50 years average summer temperatures will rise with a greater likelihood of heat waves, greater fire risk—especially in August and September—with mixed effects on precipitation.
Winters will be shorter and warmer, he said. In December and February the average ice thickness for inland lakes will decrease up to 20 percent and the amount of days it will take to get a complete ice cover will increase by 10 days. Snow depth will decrease on average by 7 inches and it may take one month longer to get a snow depth of one foot.
On the good side, for people—not moose—there will be virtually no days with a minus 10 below wind chill, which now happens about 23 days per winter.
From May to September the heat index will increase by 4 degrees Fahrenheit and the days above 80 degrees Fahrenheit are projected to more than double. With that increased warmth fire danger will increase, with the number of days of extreme fire risk projected to increase over 100 percent.
After conducting 2,250 surveys with visitors to the North Shore in 2015, (about half of them male and female, ages 18 to 65-plus, and incomes ranging from less than $30,000 per year to more than $100,000 per year) it was learned that the average visitor has been coming to the North Shore for 17 years; tends to be from Minnesota; stays less than one week (two nights in winter and four nights in summer); visits twice per season (winter or summer); travels in groups of three; and takes from one week to one month to plan their trip.
When tourists were asked how changing climate will affect their visits to the Tip of the Arrowhead, 42 percent said they were at least somewhat likely to go somewhere else if the forest changes and 38 percent said if changes to the wildlife populations (moose, lynx, snowshoe hare) were to differ, they would consider other tourist destinations.
Still, 37 percent of the visitors indicated they would be willing to pay at least $30 to a local organization to plan and adapt recreation resources to climate change.
What can be done?
When asked for ideas about what could be done to combat climate change effects on tourism, each table of participants wrote down several ideas and read them to the group. One suggestion was to plan for shorter ski/snowmobile season, but be ready for a burst of tourists when they did show up.
Another was to plan events for the shoulder seasons because they will be warmer and longer, while another thought was to make the local economy less weather based and put more emphasis on inside activities for visitors.
As far as trying to take away some of the increased risks, Jim Wiinanen, Cook County emergency management director, said businesses should assess their vulnerabilities to the possibilities of negative climate change (wildfires, floods etc.) and prepare for them, while Don Majeski said he would speak with his lake association about the report and make sure they keep working at mitigating fire danger through fire-wise activities.
Dennis Rysdahl, owner of Bluefin Bay, said he has lived in the county for 30 years and watched as the climate has changed and noted that even when it was hot in Cook County, it tended to be hotter in the Twin Cities and tourists still come here to find “a cooler, fresher place.”
Tracy Benson, who grew up in Grand Marais but then moved away for, as she put it, “a zillion million years,” said she has found that there was a change in the type of tourists the county sees today versus the tourists who used to come here in the past. “Sometimes I think tourists evolved with our change in climate,” said Benson, who today is a Grand Marais city councilor and general manager for Buck’s Hardware Hank.
North House Director Greg Wright worried that changes in the forest would affect the availability of certain wood types used at North House to make things.
When Davenport was wrapping up the meeting she asked the people on hand to go back and share what they had learned with their friends, neighbors, colleagues, and visitors to the area, but one man said, “How will I use the information? It’s too academic. It needs to be clearer, condensed and easer to understand. Right now it’s an information buffet for academics.”
Rysdahl said he also thought the information needed to be simplified, shortened and distilled to make it easier for the layman to understand. Dr. Davenport thought those were great suggestions and said her team will work to make the documents easier to understand for the general public.
To learn more about the project go to www.northshoreclimate.com.
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