Winners — and losers — from this winter’s Big Freeze

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The docked, idle cargo ships that crowded the ports in Minnesota and Michigan are now moving in earnest, hoping, probably in vain, to make up for lost time. Corn and soybean farmers in Wisconsin and Minnesota continue to delay their planting season, with some debating whether to take crop insurance and call the year a loss.

On the upside, cherry and apple orchard owners are giddy over the prospect of a bumper crop. Whitefish spawning has been outstanding. The lakes’ water levels have returned to normal after years of drought.

All of this is the result of a record-slow ice-cover thaw of the Great Lakes this year, a complicated legacy of those polar vortexes that settled over the Upper Midwest this winter. The ice was so vast and thick for so long — the five lakes were 92.2 percent ice-covered on average as of March 6, the second-highest average on record, and on a date when thaws are typically occurring in earnest — that its impact will continue to be felt by industry, farmers and consumers for months to come, experts say.

The five lakes, on which a third of American and Canadian exports travel, are normally clear of ice cover by early April at the latest, but they remained on average 9.1 percent ice-covered this week, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory.

Shipping finally returned to normal on May 2, when cargo ships no longer needed icebreaker escorts across Lake Superior, the largest and most important of the sea paths. But Superior is still at 23 percent ice cover, the most on record at this point in the calendar.

“It all has a ripple effect that can end up leading to higher prices” on steel-made products and electric bills, said Charles Bradford, a steel-industry analyst with Bradford Research.

The polar vortexes — masses of frigid air that shifted from the Arctic Circle and led to intense, often record-low temperatures this winter — are seen by scientists as another sign of climate change. While parched farmland, rising sea levels and ever more ferocious hurricanes, forest fires and tornadoes normally grab the headlines, experts insist that cold extremes are also part of the broader trend.

“I definitely have seen scientific evidence that climate variability has increased,” said aquatic biologist Randall Claramunt of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources’ Charlevoix Fisheries Research Station. “This winter is just another example.”

Indeed, a study funded by NASA and published in mid-April in the journal Geophysical Research Letters asserted that rising CO2 emissions have distorted jet stream patterns and led to both the severe droughts in the West and the polar vortexes in the Upper Midwest.

Steel makers, which rely on iron ore shipments, have been hard hit by the ice situation. U.S. Steel, the nation’s largest producer, saw its iron ore stockpiles dwindle to the point that the company shut down part of its Gary, Indiana, plant in April. U.S. Steel CEO Mario Longhi told investors on an earnings conference call to expect tough second-quarter results. “Ice conditions in the Great Lakes, and particularly Lake Superior, are the worst we have seen in over 30 years," he said.

One shipment took 11 days to make a 62-hour run in early April, said Glen Nekvasil, spokesman for the Lake Carriers' Association, which represents companies that operate 57 U.S.-flagged freighters on the Great Lakes.

“The worst of the ice is behind us, but we have suffered horrible delays here,” he said. “Now we have quite a challenge ahead of us to replenish stockpiles. The ships can’t go any faster, the docks can’t load any faster, the ships can’t unload faster. It is going to be a challenge.”

Steelmakers aren’t the only losers. The unprecedented chill — the weather station in Rochester, Minnesota, logged a record 210-day streak below 70 degrees, broken only this week — means the ground has been too cold and wet to plant corn, soybeans and other grains. Typically, the entire planting season would be over by May 16, said University of Minnesota Extension crop educator Lisa Behnken.

“By May 31, you have to decide whether to take crop insurance or run the risk of a very bad yield,” Behnken said. “Planting this late, there is also a lot of risk of a frost” in fall that could damage crops that typically would be harvested by then.