GRAND FORKS, N.D. _ As a fourth-generation resident of Waskish, Minn., on Upper Red Lake, Jonny Petrowske has history on his side when it comes to looking at changes in the weather patterns that affect his livelihood.
A jack of all trades, Petrowske traps minnows, works as a fishing and bear hunting guide, and rents five sleeper fish houses in the winter, shuttling anglers with a large tracked vehicle.
These days, Petrowske says, dealing with extreme weather patterns has become the new normal.
Some years, it's late springs and early freeze-ups; other years, it's just the opposite.
When your livelihood depends on the whims of Mother Nature, timing has a big impact on the bottom line, Petrowske says. That's especially true when trapping spottail shiners, a popular fishing bait for the mid-May Minnesota walleye opener.
Ideally, Petrowske says he'll start trapping shiners about April 25, but there have been recent springs when he hasn't put traps out until May 20 because the lake is still frozen.
By that time, there's little demand for the spottails, he says.
"Maybe global warming is affecting these weather patterns, but for the most part we're seeing extremes," Petrowske, 43, said. "The old-timers, those are the guys I listen to _ these 80- to 90-year-old guys that have been doing it forever _ they all say the same thing.
"It's never been so extreme."
Research into climate trends supports that assessment. From longer growing seasons on the prairie to changes in the makeup of northern forests; from warming lakes to declining populations of iconic species such as moose, the landscape is changing.
In Grand Forks, for example, an interactive map on Carbon Brief, a climate and energy news blog, shows the temperature has risen 1.6 degrees Celsius (2.9 degrees Fahrenheit) since the 1800s and is projected to warm between 2.1 and 6.8 degrees Celsius (3.78 and 12.2 degrees Fahrenheit) by the year 2100.
That can cause what's known as a "phenology shift," when plants and animals change the timing of what they do, said Marissa Ahlering, of Moorhead, lead prairie ecologist for The Nature Conservancy in Minnesota and the Dakotas.
"A lot of species that might bloom in the spring, we're potentially seeing them bloom earlier than they have historically," she said.
That can have a negative impact both on prairie plants and pollinating insects, Ahlering says. The Dakota skipper, a threatened prairie butterfly, is one example.
"The adults only have a two-week flight period so those adult butterflies are really only flying around for two weeks," she said. "If all the flowers bloomed early and the butterfly comes out late, you might have a problem with those populations."
