Although not the primary source of Great Lakes algae, climate change is exacerbating the problem and making it harder to reduce phosphorus and other nutrients that help algae grow, experts say.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration records show a 51 percent increase in heavy storms — those that dropped 3 inches of rain or more within 24 hours — in the Midwest since the 1960s.

Jeff Reutter, Ohio Sea Grant and Ohio State University Stone Laboratory director, cited erosion, nutrient loading, harmful algae blooms, invasive species, oxygen-depleted “dead zones,” and climate change as Lake Erie’s six biggest issues at an Ohio Farmers’ Union presentation in Toledo last Monday.

“Climate change makes all of them worse,” Mr. Reutter said.

He and other members of a special task force the state of Ohio has had looking at the phosphorus issue in recent years have concluded that western Lake Erie’s algae blooms could be brought under control within two or three years — being shallow, western Lake Erie tends to respond quickly to improvements — if northwest Ohio farm and street runoff, as well as sewage spills and other sources of nutrients, were reduced by 40 percent.

-But even if a 40 percent nutrient reduction is somehow achieved in the short-term, scientists said it’ll be an uphill battle preventing recurrences if the United States, China, India, and other countries producing the majority of the world’s greenhouse gases don’t come to terms on a meaningful plan to reduce them globally.