Recent accelerated warming of the Laurentian Great Lakes: Physical drivers

Meteotsunamis in the Laurentian Great Lakes

The generation mechanism of meteotsunamis, which are meteorologically induced water waves with spatial/temporal characteristics and behavior similar to seismic tsunamis, is poorly understood. We quantify meteotsunamis in terms of seasonality, causes, and occurrence frequency through the analysis of long-term water level records in the Laurentian Great Lakes. The majority of the observed meteots...

Hydroclimatic Factors of the Recent Record Drop in Laurentian Great Lakes Water Levels

AUGUST 2004 AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY | T he Laurentian Great Lakes (Fig. 1) comprise the United States’ premier surfacewater resource, with a basin area of 770,000 km2 (Coordinating Committee on Great Lakes Basic Hydraulic and Hydrologic Data 1977). The lakes cover an area of over 245,000 km2 and contain approximately 23,000 km3 of water. They contain about 18% of the world’s freshwater ...

Paleolimnological comparison of the Laurentian Great Lakes based on diatoms

We used cluster analysis to compare records of diatom succession recorded in dated cores from offshore basins of the five Great Lakes. Most recently deposited samples from Lakes Erie and Ontario are far removed from the cluster centroid, as are samples deposited in Lakes Huron and Michigan during forest clearance. Most recently deposited samples from Lake Superior are also clearly segregated, b...

Fisheries, Aquaculture and Exotic Species of the Laurentian Great Lakes

The influence of changing climate on the ecology and management of selected Laurentian Great Lakes fisheries.

The Laurentian Great Lakes Basin provides an ecological system to evaluate the potential effect of climate change on dynamics of fish populations and the management of their fisheries. This review describes the physical and biological mechanisms by which fish populations will be affected by changes in timing and duration of ice cover, precipitation events and temperature regimes associated with...