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Home > Research by Program > Physical Environment Prediction > Background
GLERL Physical Environment Prediction Research Program
General Background
Meteorological and oceanographic conditions in coastal areas can sometimes become dangerous and cause significant damage to property, loss of human life, and social or economic disruption. One of the primary factors responsible for hazardous conditions in coastal areas is the marine surface wind. Wind is a hazard by itself for boats, ships, and other structures, but the danger increases in aquatic systems due to wind-generated large waves, storm surges, and currents. High and low water levels, heavy snowfalls, ice, and shoreline erosion all pose serious threats in the Great Lakes and coastal marine areas, as do human-caused hazards, especially spills of petroleum products and chemicals. A principal NOAA mission objective is to develop and deliver hazard mitigation products consisting of data, warnings, predictions, and advice to users of the coastal ocean and Great Lakes.
The safe and wise use of coastal waters requires knowledge of the physical characteristics of these waters and a method to anticipate changes in these characteristics. Typically these include the three-dimensional distributions of temperature and currents, water levels, and surface wave fields. According to the 1989 National Research Council Report on Opportunities to Improve Marine Forecasting, "There exists a common national interest in, and need for, nowcasts and forecasts of oceanic velocity, thermal structure, and related fields. Significant and sustainable benefits to a variety of commercial, military, and recreational oceanic activities are identifiable and are now, for the first time, feasible based on existing ocean science and technology." This research program addresses this need in the Great Lakes, and has already been responsible for development of trajectory, wind-wave, and seiche prediction models that are used on the Great Lakes in support of the missions of the National Weather Service, state emergency management agencies, and the Coast Guard.
In August 1997, the NOAA-Coastal Ocean Program and National Science Foundation-Coastal Oceanography Program began a jointly funded program to study the impact of this episodic plume event on sediment and constituent transport and subsequent ecological effects in Lake Michigan. This program, Episodic Events: Great Lakes Experiment (EEGLE), is being coordinated by GLERL and includes three field years and two years of subsequent interpretation and product development.
EEGLE involves participants from seventeen research institutions. Program
components include a retrospective analysis of satellite imagery, water
intakes, and other data, process and survey cruises, moored current meters,
traps and data acquisition instruments and coupled hydrodynamic-sediment
transport-ecological modeling. Attempts to compute a mass balance for
nutrients and contaminants in the Great Lakes have implied that resuspension
of contaminated sediments contributes many times the sum of all external
inputs. Scientists are evaluating a recurrent annual winter-spring resuspension
event in order to estimate its impact on internal cycling of constituents
and subsequent effects on lake ecology. The goal is to characterize the
materials in the plume, infer their sources, and assess their potential
impact on the cycling and transport of nutrients and contaminants. Results
will improve our understanding of critical processes that affect the ecosystem,
and will support the development of a resource management-oriented information
and modeling system.
Last updated: 2004-04-07 jjs