GLERL Electronic Newsletter: 2008 Updates

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April 15, 2008

Contents
1) Green Ships Video
2) CEGLHH - HAB Training Workshops
3) CEGLHH - Unwanted Medicine Disposal
4) GLERL in the News
5) New Reprints
6) Web Hot Items
7) GLANSIS - New Poster and Spreadsheet Available
8) GLERL Director's Awards
_______________________________________________________________
1) Green Ships Video
If you go to the NOAA website http://www.noaa.gov/ and click on the NOAA :Living Green, it will take you to the new Video on the GLERL green Ship operations.   This video will also be showing this during the Department of Commerce's Earth Day event on April 22

2) CEGLHH - HAB Training Workshops
On March 4, 5, & 6 the GLERL-based NOAA Center of Excellence for Great Lakes and Human Health (CEGLHH) co-hosted one day training workshops on Harmful Algal Blooms with Minnesota Sea Grant and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency in the cities of Sauk Centre, Mankato, and St. Paul. The first of its kind in the Great Lakes, these workshops served to train natural resource and health managers, lake associations, and local government officials on algal ecology, blue-green algae identification, monitoring and analytical techniques, health and animal health risks, and communicating and engaging the media and public. Workshop participants received resource guides and algae identification materials. Workshop evaluations were extremely positive and articulated the necessity of such a training. Television news media was present at two of the three workshops and five newspapers featured articles on the trainings.

3) CEGLHH - Unwanted Medicine Disposal
On April 2, the Center of Excellence for Great Lakes and Human Health (CEGLHH) joined forces with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, IL-IN Sea Grant, and Michigan Sea Grant to host the “Unwanted Medicine Disposal: Doing it the Right Way” workshop. The first of its kind in Michigan, this workshop was organized to educate and provide guidance to pharmacies, hospices/long term care facilities, solid waste and environmental managers, public health officials, and public safety on environmentally sound and safe methods of disposing of and collecting pharmaceuticals. Over 105 stakeholders registered for the workshop and pharmacists were able to receive continuing education credit. IL-IN Sea Grant provided Resource Toolkit CDs to participants. Unwanted medicine disposal is a community wide issue and workshop participants agreed that engaging state, local, public health, pharmacies, natural resource, and law enforcement officials will ensure success of collection/disposal programs. The workshop was tape-recorded and will be available for public viewing along with PowerPoint presentations on the CEGLHH website: www.glerl.noaa.gov/res/Centers/HumanHealth.

4) GLERL in the News
Excerpt from:  Huron Daily Tribune, 4/7/2008, by Kate Hessling.  Phosphorus and its impact on the Bay.  http://www.michigansthumb.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19460298&BRD=2292&PAG=461&dept_id=571474&rfi=6

"A research biologist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab Friday discussed various sources of phosphorus and the impact it has on water quality in Saginaw Bay.   Juli Dyble, of the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, presented research showing while Lake Huron has fairly low phosphorus levels, that is not the case in the Saginaw Bay. The bay has significantly higher concentrations of phosphorus.  Dyble said there are a variety of sources of contaminants in Saginaw Bay. Sources of nutrients into the Saginaw Bay include industrial and municipal discharges, combined sewer overflows (CSOs), failing septic systems, urban and agricultural non-point source runoff and atmospheric deposition, Dyble said.  Other sources of contaminants include contaminated sediments (such as rocks that release contaminants they previously absorbed), and old waste disposal sites, she said.  Dyble said there also are urban centers in the watershed — including Flint, Saginaw, Bay City and Midland — that are sources for nutrients added into the bay during combined sewer overflows."

Excerpt from: Muskegon Chronicle, 4/9/2008, by Jeff Alexander.  The king of all invaders.
http://www.mlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2008/04/zebra_mussels_called_the_most.html

"In terms of the whole food web, I don't think there's any question that zebra and quagga mussels have had the largest impact on the biological communities of the Great Lakes," said Tom Nalepa, a research biologist at the federal government's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor.  Sea lamprey only affected fish at the top of the food chain. Zebra and quagga mussels have caused profound changes at all levels of the food chain in every Great Lake except Superior, Nalepa said.

"Quagga mussels are probably the most ecologically significant perturbation that has ever been documented in Lake Michigan," said Gary Fahnenstiel, senior ecologist at the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory's Lake Michigan Field Station in Muskegon.  Because zebra and quagga mussels occupy the middle of the Great Lakes food chain, they affect species above and below them, Fahnenstiel said. "They've totally altered the system," he said.

• Scientific Productivity - Jia Wang
• Best Scientific Paper -  VANDERPLEOG, H.A., T.H. JOHENGEN, P.J. Lavrentyev, C. Chen, G.A. LANG, M.A. Agy, M.H. Bundy, J.F. CAVALETTO, B.J. EADIE, J.R. LIEBIG, G.S. MILLER, S.A. RUBERG, and M.J. McCORMICK. Anatomy of the recurrent coastal sediment plume in Lake Michigan and its impacts on light climate, nutrients, and plankton. Journal of Geophysical Research 112(C03S90, doi:10.1029/2004JC002379):23 pp. (2007). http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pubs/fulltext/2007/20070010.pdf
• Employees of the Year - Johengen and Reid for the NOBOB project.
• Excellence and Individual Achievement - Sonia Joseph for work on CEGLHH.
• Exceptional Service to GLERL - Tim Hunter
• Leadership and Initiative - New Building Committee
• Outstanding Effort - IT Team
• Outstanding Outreach - Dennis Donahue, Mike Quigley and Laura Newlin
• Cost Savings - Schwab, Miller and Lashbrook for an instrument recovery operation
• Volunteerism - GLERL Recycling Volunteers
  

March 18, 2008

Contents
1) Construction Webcam
2) Summer Ship Schedule
3) New Reprint
4) Web Hot Items
_______________________________________


1) Construction Webcam
GLERL move date is October 23, 2008.  Webcam images of the construction site will
be appearing online at http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/about/newbldg/

2) Summer Ship Schedule
GLERL will be operating 6 ships of various sizes on the Lakes this summer. 

The Laurentian will operate on Lake Michigan most of the season except  when it is on Lake Erie (May 29-June 13), and on Lake Huron (May 21-26, August 11-Sept 12, and October 4-8).

The Shenehon will operate on Lake Michigan.

The Huron Explorer is dedicated to Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary (Lake Huron) all season.

The Cyclops will operate on Lake Erie all season.

The new 32' vessel will operate primarily on Lake Huron (Saginaw Bay); except when it is on Lake Erie May 28-27.

The new 25' vessel will be operating out of Monroe (Lake Erie) July-September.

3) New Reprint
Robinson, S.D., P.F. Landrum, P.L. VanHoof, and B.J. Eadie. Seasonal variation of Polychlorinated biphenyl congeners in surficial sediment, trapped settling material, and suspended particulate matter in Lake Michigan. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 27(2):313-322 (2008).

4) Web Hot Items
344 downloads - Lake Michigan Foodweb
http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pubs/brochures/foodweb/LMfoodweb.pdf

314 downloads - Great Lakes Water Levels
http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pubs/brochures/lakelevels/lakelevels.pdf

239 downloads - ASSEL, R.A. Conditional probability of December and January ice cover at selected Great Lakes shore sites. NOAA Technical Memorandum GLERL-134. NOAA, Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Ann Arbor, MI, 31 pp. (2005). ftp://ftp.glerl.noaa.gov/publications/tech_reports/glerl-134/tm-134.pdf

178 downloads - SELLINGER, C.E., and F.H. QUINN. Proceedings of the Great Lakes paleo-levels workshop: The last 4000 years. NOAA Technical Memorandum GLERL-113. NOAA, Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Ann Arbor, MI, 127 pp. (2007). ftp://ftp.glerl.noaa.gov/publications/tech_reports/glerl-113/tm-113.pdf

156 downloads - LOFGREN, B.M. Global warming effects on Great Lakes water: More precipitation bus less water? Proceedings, 18th Conference on Hydrology, 8th Annual Meeting of the AMS, Seattle, WA, January 11-15, 2004, 3 pp. (2004). http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pubs/fulltext/2004/20040002.pdf

121 downloads - Ruiz, G.M., and D.F. REID (Eds.). Current state of understanding about the effectiveness of ballast water exchange (BWE) in reducing aquatic nonindigenous species (ANS) introductions to the Great Lakes basin and Chesapeake Bay, USA:  Synthesis and analysis of existing information. NOAA Technical Memorandum GLERL-142. NOAA, Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Ann Arbor, MI, 127 pp. (2007). ftp://ftp.glerl.noaa.gov/publications/tech_reports/glerl-142/tm-142.pdf

100 downloads - NOAA Green Ship Initiative
http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pubs/brochures/GreenShip.pdf

84 downloads - Great Lakes New Invader: Bloody Red Shrimp (Hemimysis anomala)
http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pubs/brochures/hemimysis.pdf

February 15, 2008

Contents
1.  New Building Update
2.  New Reprints
3.  Web Hot Items
4.  GLERL in the News
________________________________________________

1.  New Building Update
Move in date for the new building has been delayed to October 2008.

2.  New Reprints

ASSEL, R.A. Indicator: Lake Erie ice cover. In State of the Strait, Status and Trends of Key Indicators. Hartig, J.H., M.A. Zarull, J.H. Ciborowski, J.E. Gannon, E. Wilke, G. Norwood, and A. Vincent (Eds.). Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, Occasional Publication No. 5, Univ. of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, pp. 102-104 (2007). http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pubs/fulltext/2007/20070043.pdf

BELETSKY, D., D.M. MASON, D.J. SCHWAB, E.S. Rutherford, J. Janssen, D.F. Clapp, and J.M. Dettmers. Biophysical model of larval yellow perch advection and settlement in Lake Michigan. Journal of Great Lakes Research 33:842-866 (2007). http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pubs/fulltext/2007/20070041.pdf

HAWLEY, N., and B.J. EADIE. Observations of sediment transport in Lake Erie during the winter of 2004-2005. Journal of Great Lakes Research 33:816-827 (2007). http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pubs/fulltext/2007/20070040.pdf

LESHKEVICH, G.A., and S.V. Nghiem. Satellite SAR remote sensing of Great Lakes ice cover, Part 2. Ice classification and mapping. Journal of Great Lakes Research 33:736-750 (2007). http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pubs/fulltext/2007/20070042.pdf

Nghiem, S.V., and G.A. LESHKEVICH. Satellite SAR remote sensing of Great Lakes ice cover, Part 1. Ice backscatter signatures at C band. Journal of Great Lakes Research 33:722-735 (2007). http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pubs/fulltext/2007/20070043.pdf

SELLINGER, C.E., C.A. STOW, E.C. Lamon, and S.S. Qian. Recent water level declines in the Lake Michigan-Huron system. Environmental Science and Technology 42:367-373 (2008).

3.  Web Hot Items

331 downloads - Great Lakes Water Levels
http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pubs/brochures/wlevels/wlevels.pdf

251 downloads - LOFGREN, B.M. Global warming effects on Great Lakes water: More precipitation bus less water? Proceedings, 18th Conference on Hydrology, 8th Annual Meeting of the AMS, Seattle, WA, January 11-15, 2004, 3 pp. (2004). http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pubs/fulltext/2004/20040002.pdf

201 downloads - Lake Michigan Foodweb
http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pubs/brochures/foodweb/LMfoodweb.pdf

198 downloads - Ruiz, G.M., and D.F. REID (Eds.). Current state of understanding about the effectiveness of ballast water exchange (BWE) in reducing aquatic nonindigenous species (ANS) introductions to the Great Lakes basin and Chesapeake Bay, USA:  Synthesis and analysis of existing information. NOAA Technical Memorandum GLERL-142. NOAA, Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Ann Arbor, MI, 127 pp. (2007). ftp://ftp.glerl.noaa.gov/publications/tech_reports/glerl-142/tm-142.pdf

134 downloads - SELLINGER, C.E., and F.H. QUINN. Proceedings of the Great Lakes paleo-levels workshop: The last 4000 years. NOAA Technical Memorandum GLERL-113. NOAA, Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Ann Arbor, MI, 127 pp. (2007). ftp://ftp.glerl.noaa.gov/publications/tech_reports/glerl-113/tm-113.pdf

118 downloads - ASSEL, R.A., C.E. SELLINGER, D.E. MEYER, R.N. KELLY, AND P. Grimm.Great Lakes States Monthly Average Temperature Data - Beginning of Record to 1990. NOAA Technical Memorandum GLERL-088. NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Ann Arbor, MI, 48 pp. (1995). ftp://ftp.glerl.noaa.gov/publications/tech_reports/glerl-088/tm-088.pdf

100 downloads - NOAA Green Ship Initiative
http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pubs/brochures/GreenShip.pdf

76 downloads - Great Lakes New Invader: Bloody Red Shrimp (/Hemimysis anomala/)
http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pubs/brochures/hemimysis.pdf

4.  GLERL in the News
January 12th Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story - "Prey Fish Dwindling in Lake Michigan" includes quotes by GLERL scientist Tom Nalepa regarding the spread of quagga mussels. http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=706464

January 17th Michigan Outdoor News.com article on the bloody red shrimp, hemimysis includes quotes by GLERL scientist Steve Pothoven.  http://www.michiganoutdoornews.com/articles/2008/01/17/top_news/news02.prt

January 20th, Ventura County (CA) Star story on the spread of quagga mussels in California's Lake Casitas reservoir includes quotes by GLERL scientist Tom Nalepa. http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/jan/20/quagga-mussel-threat-puts-focus-on-lake-casitas/

January 26, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story mentions GLERL/UM study on the effectiveness of salinity as a ballast water treatment.  http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=711375

January 27 Washington Post story on Great Lakes water levels includes a quote by GLERL Deputy Director / Hydrologist Cynthia Sellinger.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/26/AR2008012601748.html?hpid=topnews

February 1, MLive.com article on Saginaw Bay forum that EPA/GLNPO held yesterday at Saginaw Valley State University.  http://www.mlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2008/02/epa_zebra_mussels_may_increase.html

February 7th, Detroit Free Press story the spread of quagga mussels and declining salmon populations in the Great  Lakes includes  a quote by GLERL scientist Tom Nalepa.  http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080207/SPORTS10/802070406/1058

January 15, 2008

Contents

1. New Information Services Branch Chief
2. GLERL 2008 Projects
3. Met Stations
4. Distributed Large Basin Runoff Models
5. GLANSIS
   
6. New Reprints
7. Web Hot Items
8. GLERL in the News - Water Levels
9. CEGLHH - Harmful Algal Bloom Training Workshops

2) GLERL 2008 Projects
Following is a list of the GLERL projects for 2008.  Please let me know if you would like more information on any of these.

• Adaptive Integrated Framework - Saginaw Bay
  
• Lake Erie
  
• International Field Years on Lake Erie (IFYLE)
  
• Influence of Hypoxia...in Lake Erie - IFYLE
• Impacts of Hypoxia on benthos of Central Lake Erie
• Fish diet and condition with low oxygen - IFYLE
• ECOFORE: Forecasting the causes and impacts of Lake Erie Hypoxia
• Time series measurements in Lake Erie
• River Discharge as a predictor of Lake Erie Yellow perch
• Coupled hydrodynamic-ecological model of Lake Erie
• Observing Systems
  
• CoastWatch Operations
• Environmental Monitoring with Airborne Hyperspectral Imagery
• Satellite SAR Ice Mapping with COSMOS  and RADARSAT
• New MODIS algorithm for CHL, DOC and suspended minerals
• Optical Properties of the Great Lakes
• Real-time environmental coastal observation network
• Real-time meteorological observation network
• Great Lakes Coastal Forecasting
• Oceans and Human Health (OHH)
  
• Center for Great Lakes and Human Health
• Evaluation of the Hazard of HABs for Human Health through Fish Consumptions - OHH
  
• In-situ monitoring using buy-mounted sensors - OHH
• GLERL ECOHAB: An Integrated Approach for monitoring and event response - OHH
• OHH: Microcystins in the Great Lakes
• Near-Shore Transport: Modeling, Observations, and Beach Closure Forecasting - OHH
• Nearshore HADCP measurements - OHH
• Invasive Species
• NCRAIS
• Great Lakes Aquatic Nonindegenous Species Information System
• Coastwise ANS
• Ballast Vector Research Consolidation
• Condition of western Lake Erie dreissenids and Lake Michigan
• Evolution of Invasive Species
• Effects of non-indigenous invertebrates
• Implications of Cercopagis and Bythotrephes to alewife and stability of the Lake Michigan pelagic food web
• Changes in the pelagic food web of southern Lake Michigan
• Dreissenid mussels as homeostatic filter feeders and nutrient excreters
• Influence of Trace Metals and Zebra Mussels on Microcystis
• Other Biology
• Genetic and Environmental Factors influencing Microcystis bloom toxicity
• Recruitment of Great Lakes Fishes: A Meta-Analysis
• Mapping the condition of Diporeia
• Status of Macroinvertebrates in Lake Ontario
• Long Term trends in Benthic Populations
• Pelagic-Benthic Coupling in nearshore Lake Michigan: Linking pelagic inputs to benthic productivity
• Assessments of benthic macroinvertebrate communities in the Great Lakes region
• Diets and Condition of Forage Fish in Southern Lake Huron
• Contaminants
• Long- Term Changes in Daphnid Responses to Great Lakes Contaminants
• Causes, Consequences and Correctives of fish contamination in the Detroit River AOC
• Bayesian multilevel discrete time hazard analysis
• Climate/Weather/Ice
• Coupling QPE….to Better Estimate Overlake Precipitation
• Statistic Downscaling of Precipitation
• Great Lakes Sensitivity to Climate Forcing
• Dynamical Modeling of Great Lakes Regional Climate
• Lakes in General Circulation Models
  
• Great Lakes Ice Model (GLIM)
• Ice cover and climate patterns
• Physical/Hydrology
• Next Generation Large-Basin Runoff Models 
• Improving DLBRM’s Capabilities to Forecast
• Measurement and Modeling of Wave-induced Sediment Resuspension in nearshore water
• Energy Budget-based Simulation of Evapotranspiration
  
• Thermal structure monitoring and related studies
• Technology Development
• Alliance for Coastal Technologies (ACT)
  
• Microsensor development
• Lake Champlain
  
• Outside the Great Lakes
• NGOMEX - Hypoxic Effects on the Living Resources of the Northern Gulf of Mexico
• Fronts, Physics and Fishes in the Northern Adriatic Sea Workshop
• Habitat mediated predator-prey interactions in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico
• Temperature and Salinity effects on Shrimps
• Bayesian Implementation of a Chesapeake Bay Hypoxia Model

3) Met Stations
Some of GLERL's Meteorological Stations are transitioning to the National Weather Service.  All of NOAA's stations on the Great Lakes (including the ones still maintained by GLERL, those transitioning to NWS and additional NWS stations) can be accessed via http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/maps/WestGL.shtml and http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/maps/EastGL.shtml

• Reference or contact and/or verifier
• Specific location (Lat/lon if available)
• Date (at least to year) - year accuracy (actual, estimated, or publication year)
  
• Status (isolated report, established [multiple collections at site or reproducing] or failed)

8) GLERL in the News - Water Levels
Excerpt from
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Lake levels may fall to uncharted territory:  Region's mayors urge action, but problems are many, varied.  By DAN EGAN.  Jan. 1, 2008 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration water gauges showed that on Christmas Eve the surface of the lake had dropped to about 575 feet, 9 inches above sea level. The record low for the lake, set in April 1964, is actually a few inches above that.  Because hydrologists use monthly averages to set lake level records, nobody at this point is saying the lake officially hit an all-time low. But Lake Michigan is now about 2 1/2 feet below its long-term average, and water experts said it might be only a matter of weeks before levels dip into uncharted territory.

Levels on Lakes Michigan and Huron have never been constant since record keeping began in the mid-1800s. The water level has fluctuated by about 6 feet between its record peak and low, but severe swings have historically occurred over several years or even decades.  The recent drops have been precipitous. In just the last 12 months, levels have plummeted about a foot and a half.  "That is pretty significant," said Cynthia Sellinger, a hydrologist with the NOAA.

Yet until the lake crosses its record-low threshold set in 1964, people can at least take solace in the notion that things are still within the normal range, that things have been worse. But once the lake dips below its all-time low, the next question is: Where will it stop?   Sellinger said the low lake levels might well be something people have to get used to, and not just because of what might have happened on the St. Clair River bottom.  She recently co-wrote a study that looked at precipitation and evaporation levels over Lakes Michigan and Huron, and she discovered a worrisome trend tied to increased temperatures in the region over the past few decades. She said precipitation since 1978 has declined and evaporation has increased to the point where, essentially, the sky over the lakes is now taking more water from them than it is giving them.  "Things are warming, and we're getting more evaporation, and that means lower lake levels," she said.  Sellinger said her research showed a similar situation in the 1930s and the 1960s when the lakes also shrank dramatically. They also rebounded quickly. She said only time will tell if what has happened is just part of the normal cycles.  "That's the biggest question," she said. "Is this going to continue?"

Also A January 5th AP story on rebounding Lake Superior water levels includes quotes by GLERL Deputy Director Cynthia Sellinger. Story is at:  http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/news-49/1199567358265210.xml&storylist=newsmichigan

and a January 10 article in the Bay City Times http://www.mlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2008/01/warmwinter_cycles_accelerating.html

9) CEGLHH - Harmful Algal Bloom Training Workshops

The NOAA Center of Excellence for Great Lakes and Human Health, Minnesota Sea Grant, and Minnesota Pollution Control Agency will be co-hosting Harmful Algal Bloom Training Workshops to assist Minnesota state and local decision makers with algae identification and public communication. This one-day workshop will be held in three different locations within Minnesota. Registration is required. Please visit: www.seagrant.umn.edu/news for more details or contact sonia.joseph@noaa.gov.