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GLERL 2007 Milestone Reports
< GLERL 2007 Milestone main page
GOAL: Ecosystem
Scientist: Michael McCormick (GLERL)
NOAA Performance Objective: Access, model and forecast ecosystem resources for management decisions.
Ecosystem Research Program Performance Measure: Annual number of coastal, marine, and Great Lakes ecosystem sites adequately characterized for management
OAR Performance Measure: Percentage of tools, technologies, and information services that are used by NOAA partners/customers to improve ecosystem-based management.
NOAA Program: Ecosystem Research
Milestone: Complete the Lagrangian statistics of the surface circulation of Lake Champlain.
Purpose: To help produce better ecosystem forecasting tools.
Efforts and Results (to date):
Understanding the hydrodynamics of Lake Champlain is a basic requirement for developing forecasting tools to address most of the lake’s environmental issues. A set of relatively extensive measurements of the subsurface current and thermal structure have been made in the main body of the lake with very limited observations in the southern portion and northeast region of Lake Champlain. Even fewer observations of the surface currents exist. Lagrangian observations of the surface currents from 2003 - 2005 were made by satellite-reporting drifting buoys in the main body of the lake. In 2005 drifting buoys tracked the surface flow in the northeast portion of Lake Champlain.
All the statistics from these efforts have been completed and include: mean speed, mean velocity, mean kinetic energy, fluctuating kinetic energy, Lagrangian integral time and length scales, and the Lagrangian single – particle eddy diffusivity. Statistics from these data will be useful in the development of ecosystem forecasting tools because of the importance of surface flow to the transport and dispersion of contaminants. A journal manuscript is near completion describing these results.
Customer(s): Scientists, environmental managers, and public
Cause Factors (if milestone not met):
Milestone was met.
Revised Completion Date (if milestone not met):
Milestone was met.
Last updated: 2007-09-10 mbl