"The Great Lakes are feeling the heat from climate change.

As the world's largest freshwater system warms, it is poised to systematically alter life for local wildlife and the tribes that depend on it, according to regional experts. And the warming could also provide a glimpse of what is happening on a more global level, they say.

'The Great Lakes in a lot of ways have always been a canary in the coal mine,' Cameron Davis, the senior adviser to the U.S. EPA on the Great Lakes, said last week. 'Not just for the region or this country, but for the rest of the world.'"

Dina Fine Maron reports for Climatewire July 19, 2010. [2]