12/6/16: Silvia Newell
2016-12-06 10:30 - 11:30 (America/Detroit) | NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, 4840 S State Rd, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, United States
Please join us for a Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 10:30-11:30 EST
Location: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Lake Superior Hall
Presenter: Silvia Newell, Assistant Professor, Wright State University
Title: Nitrogen cycling in eutrophic systems: Case studies in Lakes Erie and Taihu
Event flyer

Webinar recording: https://youtu.be/X5loqhigjvg
Abstract: Cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (HABs) in Lake Taihu and western Lake Erie are driven largely by agricultural nitrogen (N) and phosphorus. Cyanobacterial community dominance and HAB development may depend on ammonium (NH4+) availability, and increased NH4+ has been linked to increased toxin production. Microcystis, the dominant toxic cyanobacterial genus in both lakes, cannot fix atmospheric N2; consequently, it must compete for NH4+ with other primary producers. Understanding the factors that govern N cycling and NH4+ availability is therefore crucial for identifying conditions that stimulate and maintain HABs.
Bio: Silvia Newell is an Assistant Professor at Wright State University in Dayton, OH. She has a Ph.D. in Geosciences from Princeton University. Her dissertation focused on biogeochemical cycling of nitrogen in low-oxygen marine environments in Chesapeake Bay and the Arabian Sea. For her post-doctoral work, first at Princeton and then at Boston University, she continued her exploration of the nitrogen cycle in the Sargasso Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and Cape Cod. Currently, her work at Wright State focuses on hypereutrophic Lake Erie, Lake Okeechobee, and Lake Taihu in China, as well as local research on the Great Miami River and small lakes.
Important Visitor Information
All in-person seminar attendees are required to receive a visitor badge from the front desk at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory facility. Seminar attendees need to present a valid U.S. photo ID or green card. If you are a Foreign National, advance notification of at least 48 hours is needed so that security guidelines are followed. You will need to present your passport (a copy will NOT work). For questions regarding building access, or assistance in obtaining Foreign National clearance, please call 734-741-2393. Email contact: Tim.Powell@noaa.gov
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu

1/25/17: Galen McKinley
2017-01-25 10:30 - 23:30 | NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, 4840 S State Rd, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, United States
Please join us for a Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 10:30-11:30 am EST
Location: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Lake Superior Hall
Presenter: Galen McKinley, Professor, University of Wisconsin
Title: Spatio-temporal Variability in Great Lakes Biogeochemistry
Event Flyer
Webinar recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m80c5Zbxctk
Abstract: Biogeochemical and carbon cycling in Great Lakes occurs in the context of a highly variable aquatic landscape that is significantly impacted by physical forcing. In order to understand biogeochemical cycling in its mean state and as it changes, we must quantify the role of physical variability in space and time. Here, three carbon cycle examples will be presented. In Lake Superior, analysis of a coupled hydrodynamic-biogeochemical model (MITgcm.Superior) shows that physical gradients cause large variation in rates of both production (P) and respiration (R) between nearshore and offshore waters. Accounting for this variability helps to bring the lake-wide carbon budget into balance (Bennington et al. 2012, JGR). In the model, fluxes of organic carbon from nearshore lead to elevated R:P ratios in the slope region, which could support the observed enhanced heterotrophic biomass on the slope (McKinley and Bennington, in prep). Lastly, in all the Great Lakes, I demonstrate that increasing atmospheric CO2 should lead to a reduction of pH by ~0.3 units by 2100, quantitatively the same as projections for “ocean acidification” in the global oceans. In the Great Lakes, the existing carbon cycle observational system is insufficient to track such changes (Phillips et al. 2015).
Bio: Professor McKinley studies the mechanisms of the carbon cycle in the global oceans and Great Lakes, with her research lying at the intersection of physical and chemical oceanography. Her primary tools are numerical models and analysis of large datasets. More specifically, her research addresses the physical drivers of ecosystem and carbon cycle variability in the North Atlantic, global oceans and Great Lakes. Professor McKinley teaches oceanography and climate science in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at University of Wisconsin – Madison. She is also very active in service to the national and international scientific and policy-making communities.
Important Visitor Information
All in-person seminar attendees are required to receive a visitor badge from the front desk at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory facility. Seminar attendees need to present a valid U.S. photo ID or green card. If you are a Foreign National, advance notification of at least 48 hours is needed so that security guidelines are followed. You will need to present your passport (a copy will NOT work). For questions regarding building access, or assistance in obtaining Foreign National clearance, please call 734-741-2393. Email contact: Tim.Powell@noaa.gov
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu

2/16/17: Mark Rowe
2017-02-16 10:30 - 11:30 | NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, 4840 S State Rd, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, United States
Please join us for a Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 10:30-11:30 am EST
Location: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Lake Superior Hall
Presenter: Dr. Mark Rowe, Cooperative Institute for Limnology and Ecosystems Research (CILER), University of Michigan
Title: Looking at Lake Erie Hypoxia From a Different Point of View
Event Flyer
Webinar recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EultRx8bxEA&t=2s
Abstract: Hypoxia in the central basin of Lake Erie is a well-known phenomenon that has been studied since the 1980s, and even earlier. Low dissolved oxygen in the bottom water of a stratified lake can be harmful from an ecological perspective by killing benthic organisms that serve as food for fish, and also by excluding fish from preferred habitat. Hypoxia is caused by excessive nutrient loading, resulting in excessive algal growth, which consumes oxygen when it settles to the bottom. Most models of hypoxia are designed to answer the question of how much nutrient load reduction is needed to reduce hypoxia to meet some goal. In addition to being an important ecological resource, Lake Erie is a source of drinking water to millions of people. Lake dynamics, including seiches, internal waves, and wind-induced upwelling-downwelling, can cause changing water quality at public water system intakes over a period of a few hours. In order to maintain the quality of treated water, treatment processes may need to be adjusted in response to changes in temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, organic matter, iron, or manganese at the inlet. We recently began a project to develop a hypoxia forecast model that can provide a real-time nowcast and five-day forecast of temperature and dissolved oxygen for public water systems on Lake Erie in order to provide plant managers with advance notice of events that are likely to produce changing water quality at their inlets. While past studies have focused on deep water and on time scales of years, our focus is on nearshore water intakes, on dynamic events that last hours or days, and on development of an operational forecast model. In this presentation, I will discuss past and present models and observations of Lake Erie hypoxia, and what we know and hope to learn about episodes of hypoxia that affect nearshore drinking water intakes.
Bio: Mark Rowe works on developing models to understand and predict changes in the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of the Great Lakes. His recent work has focused on development of linked hydrodynamic and biological models to simulate harmful algal blooms and hypoxia in Lake Erie, and impacts of invasive quagga mussels on primary production, nutrient cycles, and the lower food web of Lake Michigan. He has contributed to forecast models that provide timely and actionable information to public water systems, anglers, recreational users of Lake Erie. Dr. Rowe received MS and PhD degrees from Michigan Technological University where he conducted research on measurement and modeling of atmospheric deposition of persistent organic pollutants to Lake Superior.
Important Visitor Information
All in-person seminar attendees are required to receive a visitor badge from the front desk at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory facility. Seminar attendees need to present a valid U.S. photo ID or green card. If you are a Foreign National, advance notification of at least 48 hours is needed so that security guidelines are followed. You will need to present your passport (a copy will NOT work). For questions regarding building access, or assistance in obtaining Foreign National clearance, please call 734-741-2393. Email contact: Tim.Powell@noaa.gov
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu

3/21/17: Christopher Winslow
2017-03-21 13:00 - 14:00 | NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, 4840 S State Rd, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, United States
Please join us for a Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 1:00-2:00 pm EST
Location: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Lake Superior Hall
Presenter: Dr. Christopher J. Winslow, Ohio Sea Grant
Title: Lake Erie HABs and current research efforts: bloom behavior, producing safe drinking water, public health impacts, and nutrient load reduction
Event Flyer
Webinar Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61pjI0xL-a4
Abstract: A glimpse into the >50 projects currently managed by Ohio Sea Grant and OSU’s Stone Laboratory with assistance from the University of Toledo; Just under $7,000,000 are currently in play. These research efforts aim to: (1) improve the use of existing technologies and to develop new methods to detect, prevent and mitigate harmful algal blooms and their impacts; (2) assess the health impacts of harmful algal blooms and the associated toxins; (3) develop new treatment methods for contaminated drinking water that remove both algal particles in general and the toxins produced by cyanobacteria in particular; and (4) develop ways to disseminate HABs information more effectively by establishing how information moves through existing networks of people and using those networks – such as Extension and farmer partnerships – to distribute new information about harmful algal blooms. This work is supported by the Ohio Department of Higher Education, OSU’s College of Food Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and Ohio Sea Grant. These efforts are truly collaborative involving eight agencies (four federal and four state), two NGOs, 13 universities, and four private sector entities.
Bio: For the past thirteen years Chris has been at Ohio State University’s Stone Laboratory, first as an instructor and research supervisor, but now as Director of both the Lab and the Ohio Sea Grant College Program. Chris was an Instructor at BGSU (2002-09) and an Assistant Professor at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania (2009-11). Chris’ research and outreach efforts include the impact of invasive species, nutrient loading, harmful algal bloom causes and impacts, dredging activity, coastal community resilience and growth, and the potential impacts of climate change. Chris is currently Co-Director of the Lake Erie Millennium Network and committee member of Annex IV and Annex II of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, International Joint Commission’s Research Coordinating Committee (Science Advisory Board), Cleveland Water Alliance, Lake Erie Partnership Working Group, Blue Accounting – ErieStat Workgroup (Great Lakes Commission), and the Fertilizer Research Workgroup (Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development). He is also Agency Partner for Ohio Lake Erie Commission, Advisory Board member of OSU’s Global Water Institute, Advisory Council member for the Ohio Water Trust, and member for Old Woman Creek National Estuarine Research Reserve Advisory Board. Chris holds a B.S. from Ohio University and both M.S. and Ph.D. from Bowling Green State University.
Important Visitor Information
All in-person seminar attendees are required to receive a visitor badge from the front desk at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory facility. Seminar attendees need to present a valid U.S. photo ID or green card. If you are a Foreign National, advance notification of at least 48 hours is needed so that security guidelines are followed. You will need to present your passport (a copy will NOT work). For questions regarding building access, or assistance in obtaining Foreign National clearance, please call 734-741-2393. Email contact: Tim.Powell@noaa.gov
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu

4/10/17: Robert Sterner
2017-04-10 13:00 - 14:00 | NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, 4840 S State Rd, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, United States
Please join us for a Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 1:00-2:00 pm EDT
Location: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Lake Superior Hall
Presenter: Dr. Robert Sterner, University of Minnesota-Duluth Large Lakes Observatory
Title: Lake Superior: A warming ecosystem
Event Flyer
Webinar Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6OYkMvgxtk&t=42s
Abstract: Dramatic physical changes to the seasonal mixing regime of Lake Superior have been described: the summer stratified season is lengthening and summer surface temperatures are increasing. At the same time, there are less prevalent anthropogentic forcings affecting Lake Superior than most other large lakes, including most of the Laurentian Great Lakes. This means Lake Superior may provide important clues about how climate affects large lake ecosystems. Dr. Sterner’s seminar will draw from almost twenty years of study of the offshore Lake Superior ecosystem, with an emphasis on nutrients and the lower food web. Changes to primary production and primary producers have been observed, though the complex interconnections of “physics to fish” are still poorly resolved.
Bio: Dr. Sterner’s research combines biological with chemical approaches to understand lake ecosystems, with particular focus on understanding the linkages among the cycles of carbon and nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus. Dr. Sterner received a B.S. in Biology from the University of Illinois in 1980 and a Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of Minnesota in 1986, working with David Tilman. Dr. Sterner has published more than 90 papers and books that together have been cited > 12,000 times. He is one of the founders of the field of Ecological Stochiometry, which seeks to understand how elemental balances and ratios affect organism success, community structure, ecosystem dynamics, and other topics. He has focused mainly on freshwater plankton, but through work with colleagues and students, he has contributed to the literature on microbes, fish, terrestrial plants, and other organisms. Dr. Sterner has spent most of his career at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, serving as the Head of the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior. He also spent 2+ years working at the National Science Foundation in senior management as the Director of the Division of Environmental Biology, where he contributed to the shaping of the NSF funding portfolio and acted as a national spokesperson for environmental research in the U.S. He has done research on the Great Lakes since ~1996 and in 2014, he moved to the University of Minnesota-Duluth where he became the Director of the Large Lakes Observatory, the only institution in the U.S. dedicated to the scientific study of all the large lakes on Earth.
Important Visitor Information
All in-person seminar attendees are required to receive a visitor badge from the front desk at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory facility. Seminar attendees need to present a valid U.S. photo ID or green card. If you are a Foreign National, advance notification of at least 48 hours is needed so that security guidelines are followed. You will need to present your passport (a copy will NOT work). For questions regarding building access, or assistance in obtaining Foreign National clearance, please call 734-741-2393. Email contact: Tim.Powell@noaa.gov
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu

5/11/17: Bopi Biddanda
2017-05-11 13:00 - 14:00 | NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, 4840 S State Rd, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, United States
Please join us for a Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 1:00-2:00 pm EDT
Location: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Lake Superior Hall
Presenter: Dr. Bopi Biddanda, Grand Valley State University, Annis Water Resources Institute
Title: Finding and Tracking the “Goldilocks Zone” for Carbon Cycling in a Great Lakes Watershed
Event Flyer
Webinar Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg1CE992530&index=12&list=PL9U_EaC5J7PxAV2x50vllTghRt-2c7PcR
Abstract: For more than a decade, we have monitored the Muskegon Lake estuary, a model drowned river mouth system that is an Area of Concern with connectivity to the 2nd largest watershed in Michigan and Lake Michigan. Measured rates of carbon metabolism from upstream Muskegon River to offshore Lake Michigan show prevalence of high rates of gross production (GP), respiration (R), and net production (NP) in Muskegon Lake that decrease steeply along an offshore transect in Lake Michigan. Over the annual cycle, Muskegon Lake is net autotrophic suggesting that estuary/near-shore waters are net carbon sinks. Autotrophy was maximized in the coastal/estuary zone where longer residence times coincide with nutrient loading from the watershed. Indeed, the overall net autotrophic production in this coastal “Goldilocks Zone” may explain the highly productive resident and migratory fisheries of this Great Lakes estuary.
Since spring 2011, using advanced observing technology we have also been gathering high-resolution time-series data from meteorological and multi-depth water sensors through the Muskegon Lake buoy Observatory (MLO; www.gvsu.edu/buoy). MLO has revealed the intimate inner workings of Muskegon Lake such as how the estuary operates on a daily, monthly, seasonal, and yearly basis. For example, MLO has informed us about the annually recurring summer bottom water hypoxia and emergence of harmful cyanobacterial blooms (HABs) exposing daily and weekly oscillations in the severity of each. With additional moorings and sensor strings deployed lake-wide during 2015-16, we now have evidence that substantial but episodic intrusion of upwelled cold and high-dissolved oxygen water from nearshore Lake Michigan into the bottom waters of the estuary during the summer-stratified period may reduce the severity of both bottom water hypoxia and surface water HABs in this estuary. Open-access time-series data from the MLO is advancing science, and science-based education, outreach and restoration activities. However, continued operation of this sentinel regional infrastructure past the current year is in jeopardy due to severe funding scarcity.
Bio: Dr. Bopaiah (Bopi) Biddanda is an aquatic microbial ecologist/carbon biogeochemist studying the movement of carbon driven by microbes in freshwater ecosystems. He has a Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of Georgia where he explored new mechanisms of carbon flux mediated by microbes in the sea. Subsequently, he went on research and teaching adventures at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (Germany), University of Texas Marine Science Institute, University of Rio Grande (Brazil) and University of Minnesota. Currently, as a professor of water resources at GVSU, he studies the microbial biogeochemistry of the Laurentian Great Lakes – including life in extreme environments, teaches classes in Marine Biology and Biogeochemistry, operates a world-class time-series buoy observatory in Muskegon Lake AOC, serves as a fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Limnology and Ecosystems Research, and coordinates NASA’s Michigan Space Grant Consortium programs for GVSU. Bopi is a recipient of the 2009 Chandler-Misener Award by the International Association for Great Lakes Research. He just returned from a sabbatical studying the response of oligotrophic high-mountain glacial lakes of Sierra Nevada (Spain) to increasing ultraviolet exposure and Saharan dust deposition. For the foreseeable future, he hopes to study Earth’s lakes as sentinels of both local and global change, focusing on the changing carbon cycle in one of our most vital societal commons: freshwater.
Important Visitor Information
All in-person seminar attendees are required to receive a visitor badge from the front desk at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory facility. Seminar attendees need to present a valid U.S. photo ID or green card. If you are a Foreign National, advance notification of at least 48 hours is needed so that security guidelines are followed. You will need to present your passport (a copy will NOT work). For questions regarding building access, or assistance in obtaining Foreign National clearance, please call 734-741-2393. Email contact: Tim.Powell@noaa.gov
TRAFFIC NOTICE: South State Road is currently under construction and is closed to through traffic between Ellsworth and Morgan, where GLERL is located. Access to GLERL is from the south (i.e., via Textile Road to S. State Rd.). Please allow extra time for this detour.
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu

7/27/17: Yi Chao
2017-07-27 10:30 - 11:30 | NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, 4840 S State Rd, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, United States
Please join us for a Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 10:30-11:30 am EDT
Location: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Lake Superior Hall
Presenter: Dr. Yi Chao, CEO, Seatrec, Inc. & Scientist, Remote Sensing Solutions, Inc.
Title: Ocean Observing and Modeling Technology to Enable Operational Forecasting
Event Flyer
Webinar Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjXXuVgegAo&list=PL9U_EaC5J7PxAV2x50vllTghRt-2c7PcR&index=13
Abstract: Weather forecast information is now available anywhere anytime thanks to a comprehensive atmospheric observing system and mature modeling technology. Operational ocean forecasting however is still in its infancy. This talk will describe two technology breakthroughs to enable operational ocean forecasting. The first breakthrough is to power underwater systems by ocean temperature differences. Currently, all autonomous underwater systems are powered by primary battery and therefore have limited lifetime. Replacing or recharging battery at sea is a very expensive operation and certainly not scalable on the global scale. Harvesting energy from vertical temperature differences in the ocean is shown to be a viable solution to power underwater systems (e.g., floats, gliders, AUVs) indefinitely.
The second technology breakthrough is the data assimilation method to combine observational data with a numerical model simulation to enable forecasting. For our California coastal ocean forecast system, the three-dimensional variational (3DVAR) data assimilation method was selected because of its computational efficiency as compared to other advanced methods such as 4DVAR or Kalman Filter. The California coastal ocean forecast system is run in near real-time to produce a nowcast every six hours and a 72-hour forecast every day. The performance of this forecast system will be presented. Our experience working with users (e.g., search and rescue operation, oil spill response) will be described. A decade-long hindcast will be also presented to describe the seasonal-to-interannual variability including the most recent warming conditions during 2014-2016 associated with El Niño and Pacific Decadal Oscillation.
Bio: With a Ph.D. from Princeton University, Dr. Chao worked at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of Caltech for more than 20 years. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed journal papers in the areas of ocean modeling and satellite remote sensing. He has been granted two patents in harvesting energy from the ocean temperature differences. In 2012, Dr. Chao left NASA JPL/Caltech to start a new career in private industry with a goal to transfer government-funded research and development to commercial applications.
Important Visitor Information
All in-person seminar attendees are required to receive a visitor badge from the front desk at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory facility. Seminar attendees need to present a valid U.S. photo ID or green card. If you are a Foreign National, advance notification of at least 48 hours is needed so that security guidelines are followed. You will need to present your passport (a copy will NOT work). For questions regarding building access, or assistance in obtaining Foreign National clearance, please call 734-741-2393. Email contact: Tim.Powell@noaa.gov
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu

8/15/17: Yushun Chen
2017-08-15 10:30 - 23:30 | NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, 4840 S State Rd, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, United States
Please join us for a Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 10:30-11:30 am EDT
Location: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Lake Superior Hall
Presenter: Dr. Yushun Chen, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Title: Ecological responses to water diversion of the eastern route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project (SNWDP) of China
Event Flyer
Webinar Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpeYSb37pt4&list=PL9U_EaC5J7PxAV2x50vllTghRt-2c7PcR&index=14
Abstract: The South-to-North Water Diversion Project (SNWDP) of China is the largest water diversion project in the world, diverting water from the Yangtze River to alleviate the pressure of water scarcity in northern China. The eastern route of the SNWDP pumps water from the Lower Yangtze River near Yangzhou, Jiangsu, passes the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and a series of storage lakes, and finally provides water for provinces of Shangdong and Tianjin. We monitored water quality, plankton, macroinvertebrates, aquatic plants, and fishes in two storage lakes, Gaoyou and Dongping, since April 2016 and wanted to detect the effects of the water diversion on lake ecosystems.
The current study showed: (1) water depth increased and varied in the studied lakes; (2) the monitored water quality parameters such as nutrients (nitrate, total ammonia nitrogen, phosphate), total suspended solids (TSS), and conductivity showed seasonal variations in both lakes; (3) heavy metals such as Pb, Zn and Mn showed significantly higher concentrations in summer in both lakes; (4) the abundance of resident fishes (e.g., Culter oxycephaloides (Kreyenberg et Pappenheim), Chanodichtys oxycephalus (Bleeker), Abbottina rivularis) was reduced while lake-river migration fishes (e.g., Mylopharyngodon piceus, Ctenopharyngodon idellus) were increased in both lakes; and (5) the estuary fish Taenioides cirratus was also observed in Gaoyou Lake. The operation of the eastern route SNWDP could change the structure and function of the associated lakes significantly and needs more attention in the future.
Bio: Dr. Yushun Chen is currently a professor and group leader for the Aquatic Ecosystems Health Research Group at the Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. With funding from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and others, Dr. Chen and his lab are conducting research on fish and aquatic communities, water quality, and aquatic ecosystem health in the Yangtze River Basin, basins along the Eastern Route of China’s South to North Water Diversion Project, and the Mississippi-Yangtze Large River Basins through international collaborations. Since 2013, Dr. Chen and colleagues have been promoting large river/lake basin collaborations between the USA and China, and beyond. Before his current position, Dr. Chen earned his Ph.D. from West Virginia University, then worked as a Post-Doc at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, NOAA National Coastal Data Development Center, and as a faculty member at the Aquaculture and Fisheries Center, University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.
Important Visitor Information
All in-person seminar attendees are required to receive a visitor badge from the front desk at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory facility. Seminar attendees need to present a valid U.S. photo ID or green card. If you are a Foreign National, advance notification of at least 48 hours is needed so that security guidelines are followed. You will need to present your passport (a copy will NOT work). For questions regarding building access, or assistance in obtaining Foreign National clearance, please call 734-741-2393. Email contact: Tim.Powell@noaa.gov
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu

10/25/17: Hongsheng Bi
2017-10-25 13:30 - 14:30 | NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, 4840 S State Rd, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, United States
Please join us for a Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 1:30-2:30 pm EDT
Location: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Lake Superior Hall
Presenter: Dr. Hongsheng Bi, University of Maryland
Title: Seeing the invisible in coastal waters: imaging systems for ecological monitor and forecasts
Event Flyer
Webinar Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2uhyvBcxCQ&list=PLKF8ou9yUPhMYpbpU53OWvYLsa3vQjNAY&index=3
Abstract: Imaging systems have been proven useful for marine ecology. However, deploying them in shallow coastal waters are often hampered by complex dynamic processes which often lead to sub-ideal image quality, highly variable contents and backgrounds. In the present study, we deployed a shadowgraph imaging system (PlanktonScope) to understand the spatial and temporal dynamics of dominant plankton taxa and an adaptive resolution imaging sonar (ARIS) to quantify forage species and their habitat utilization in shallow water estuaries. Results from PlanktonsCope captured a full bloom cycle of Noctiluca sp. in Shenzhen Bay in 2016, while the deployment of ARIS system in Chesapeake Bay in 2016 – 2017 yielded useful estimates of forage abundance and their habitat utilization. Our results highlight that imaging systems could be useful for ecological monitor and forecasts in coastal waters and provide better insights on the spatial and temporal dynamics of key species, trophic interactions and habitat utilization.
Bio: Hongsheng Bi is a fisheries Oceanographer specializing in the fine scale spatial distributions of different marine organisms and their trophic interactions. Hongsheng deploys advanced optical imaging systems and high resolution sonar imaging systems to quantify the spatial distributions and overlap of plankton, forage fish, and jellyfish. He is particularly interested in understand jellyfish dynamics and their interactions with other trophic levels. He is currently funded by NSF to investigate jellyfish dynamics and their impact on the Bering Sea ecosystem structure by deploying towed zooplankton imaging system (PlanktonScope) and the adaptive resolution imaging sonar (ARIS) systems. Hongsheng also operates a time-resolved Tomographic Particle Image Velocimetry at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.
Important Visitor Information
All in-person seminar attendees are required to receive a visitor badge from the front desk at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory facility. Seminar attendees need to present a valid U.S. photo ID or green card. If you are a Foreign National, advance notification of at least 48 hours is needed so that security guidelines are followed. You will need to present your passport (a copy will NOT work). For questions regarding building access, or assistance in obtaining Foreign National clearance, please call 734-741-2393. Email contact: Tim.Powell@noaa.gov
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu

11/7/17: Christopher Spence
2017-11-07 10:30 - 11:30 | NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, 4840 S State Rd, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, United States
Please join us for a Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 10:30-11:30 am EDT
Location: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Lake Superior Hall
Presenter: Dr. Christopher Spence, Environment and Climate Change Canada
Title: Ten years of the Great Lakes Evaporation Network: Progress Made and Opportunities for the Future
Event Flyer
*Remote participation is available via webinar. To participate remotely, please register at: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/2007397456817558017. Once registered, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
Abstract: The period of sustained low water levels from 2006 – 2012 renewed interest in the water budgets of the Laurentian Great Lakes. At the time, there had not been a sustained coordinated effort to directly measure evaporation over the world’s largest freshwater surface. Instrumentation was deployed in 2008 on Lake Superior as part of the International Upper Great Lakes Study to evaluate operational atmospheric and hydrological models in both Canada and the United States of America. This original field campaign has evolved into the consortium that is the Great Lakes Evaporation Network. This presentation will summarize significant advances in process understanding, water budget regime characterization, operational modelling and observational technologies for which the network is responsible. There remain challenges that will be discussed. These include knowledge gaps in the spatial distribution of evaporation and resilience of the thermal regime; forecast model assessment; and operationalization.
Bio: Chris was born in Hanna, Alberta and raised in Regina, Saskatchewan. Chris holds a B.A. (Hons.) and M.Sc. from the University of Regina and a Ph.D. from McMaster University. He began his career as a GIS/remote sensing technician with the National Hydrology Research Institute of Environment Canada. Between 1994 and 2004 he worked as a hydrologist with (what was then) Indian and Northern Affairs Canada and Environment Canada in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. In 2004, he relocated back to Saskatoon where he now works as a research scientist for Environment and Climate Change Canada. He holds adjunct professor appointments at the Universities of Saskatchewan and Manitoba. His research focuses on hydrological and hydrometeorological processes in cold regions, with field studies in complex landscapes such as the Canadian Shield and Prairie, and the Laurentian Great Lakes. He has a beautiful wife with whom he has a daughter. Loves them dearly. Away from work, he enjoys mountain biking, backpacking, and drumming with the North Saskatchewan Regiment Pipes and Drums. He likes to travel, and see how other people live, and hear their perspectives.
Important Visitor Information
All in-person seminar attendees are required to receive a visitor badge from the front desk at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory facility. Seminar attendees need to present a valid U.S. photo ID or green card. If you are a Foreign National, advance notification of at least 48 hours is needed so that security guidelines are followed. You will need to present your passport (a copy will NOT work). For questions regarding building access, or assistance in obtaining Foreign National clearance, please call 734-741-2393. Email contact: Tim.Powell@noaa.gov
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu

3/26/18: Thomas M. Hamill
2018-03-26 13:30 - 14:30 | NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, 4840 S State Rd, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, United States
Please join us for a Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 1:30-2:30pm
Location: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Lake Superior Hall
Presenter: Thomas M. Hamill, NOAA Earth System Research Lab
Title: Improved Statistical Postprocessing of Precipitation for the NWS Forecasts and Hydrologic Applications
Event Flyer
Webinar Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgKfsajlwNQ&t=492s
Abstract: Accurate numerical forecasts of precipitation have many purposes, including providing forcings to hydrologic models used to predict river flow and Great Lakes water levels. Commonly, the raw model guidance may exhibit both random and systematic errors, such as an overabundance of light precipitation and not enough heavy precipitation. If the raw guidance is used to provide precipitation forcings to hydrologic predictions, the accuracy of those predictions will suffer. A potential solution is the statistical postprocessing of the numerical guidance, using past forecasts and observations (or analyses) to statistically adjust the current model guidance. Statistical postprocessing of precipitation amount is quite challenging; to have an adequate training sample of unusual events such as heavy precipitation, either a long time series of past forecasts and analyses are needed (i.e., reforecasts) or advanced statistical methods to leverage shorter training data sets.
In this seminar I will describe an advanced precipitation postprocessing algorithm in development that is intended for operational use in the NWS roughly a year hence. Each of the ensemble predictions are statistically postprocessed to adjust for biases in the mean amount and for excessive confidence. Short training data sets (the last 60 days of forecasts and analyses) are used. Biases in the mean amount are addressed through “quantile mapping” using cumulative distributions functions (CDFs) of analyzed and forecast precipitation. To address the small training sample size, the training sample used to populate CDFs at a particular location are supplemented by data from other locations with similar precipitation climatologies and terrain characteristics. The final probabilities are determined from a weighted linear combination of “dressed” ensemble members.
The resultant probabilistic forecasts are greatly improved, as will be demonstrated with verification statistics and some case studies. After presentation of results, I welcome discussion about the potential relevance of this algorithm for forcing hydrologic predictions of the Great Lakes.
Bio: Thomas performs, coordinates, and leads R&D to improve NOAA’s probabilistic weather forecasts on time scales of days to several weeks. The probabilistic forecasts are based on ensembles of weather simulations using different initial conditions and methods for simulating imperfections in the forecast model. Thomas is also involved in the “post-processing” of ensembles of forecasts, making corrections to the real-time forecasts based on discrepancies noted between past forecasts and observations or analyses. Thomas and his team develop these research methods, demonstrate their suitability for operational use, and then work with colleagues in the National Weather Service to adapt them for daily use by forecasters and the public. They document their work in the form of peer-reviewed journal articles, presentations, white papers, book chapters, and so forth.
Thomas also has several additional roles. He is co-chairperson of the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO’s) Data Assimilation and Observing Systems committee. He is on the management board of the NOAA-NCAR Developmental Test Center, and on Cornell University’s Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences review board. Thomas has previously been an editor of the American Meteorological Society’s journal “Monthly Weather Review” and served for many years on the WMO’s Working Group for Numerical Experimentation. Recently, Thomas contributed to the NWS Service Assessment in the wake of the severe flooding in Boulder (Sep 2013).
Important Visitor Information
All in-person seminar attendees are required to receive a visitor badge from the front desk at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory facility. Seminar attendees need to present a valid U.S. photo ID or green card. If you are a Foreign National, advance notification of at least 48 hours is needed so that security guidelines are followed. You will need to present your passport (a copy will NOT work). For questions regarding building access, or assistance in obtaining Foreign National clearance, please call 734-741-2393. Email contact: Tim.Powell@noaa.gov
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu

5/3/18: Patricia A. Soranno
2018-05-03 10:30 - 11:30 | NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, 4840 S State Rd, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, United States
Please join us for a Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 10:30-11:30am
Location: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Lake Superior Hall
Presenter: Dr. Patricia A. Soranno, Professor, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State University
Title: Macrosystems ecology: Developing a macroscale understanding of ecosystem properties
Event Flyer
Webinar Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td1pBu8Wjlc&t=3481s
Abstract: Macrosystems ecology is the study of diverse ecological phenomena at the scale of regions to continents and their interactions with phenomena at other scales. This emerging subdiscipline addresses ecological questions and environmental problems at these broad scales. In this talk, I will discuss how empirical macrosystems ecology can help to develop macroscale understanding of ecosystem properties at continental scales by providing the needed understanding of spatial and temporal variation and the multi-scaled controls of that variation. I will describe how we are starting to develop such an understanding of lake nutrients and productivity in thousands of lakes in the upper Midwest and northeastern US using a recently-developed database called LAGOS-NE, which is publicly accessible and includes in situ water quality measurements on almost 10,000 lakes, and ecological context data on all 50,000 lakes in the study area. I will end with a discussion of how such a macroscale understanding can inform important goals of ecology including extrapolation, scaling up, and forecasting.
Bio: Dr. Patricia A. Soranno is a professor at Michigan State University in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. She is a broadly-trained aquatic ecologist who conducts both basic and applied research that integrates freshwater ecosystems into a landscape perspective from local to continental scales. She has spent the last 20 years conducting collaborative research on lakes to build a more formal conceptualization of landscape limnology based on a foundation of landscape ecology and limnology. Further, in collaboration with many biological, terrestrial, aquatic, and atmospheric scientists, she is helping to identify the critical needs for the emerging discipline of macrosystems ecology which views ecological systems from the very finest to the very broadest scales, is data-intensive and often interdisciplinary, and will be needed to address many ecological problems in the coming decades that are regional to global in nature. She is the founding editor-in-chief for the Association of the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography’s newest open-access journal, Limnology & Oceanography Letters.
**Registration is not required, however please note important visitor information**
Important Visitor Information
All in-person seminar attendees are required to receive a visitor badge from the front desk at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory facility. Seminar attendees need to present a valid U.S. photo ID or green card. If you are a Foreign National, advance notification of at least 48 hours is needed so that security guidelines are followed. You will need to present your passport (a copy will NOT work). For questions regarding building access, or assistance in obtaining Foreign National clearance, please call 734-741-2394. Email contact: Scott.Purdy@noaa.gov
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu
Visit ciglr.seas.umich.edu for more information.

6/13/18: Casey Godwin
2018-06-13 15:00 - 16:00 | NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, 4840 S State Rd, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, United States
Please join us for a Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 3:00-4:00 pm EDT
Location: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Lake Superior Hall
Presenter: Dr. Casey Godwin, Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research
Title: Ecological stoichiometry of aquatic microbes: from water quality to sustainable energy production
Event Flyer
**Remote participation is available via webinar. To participate remotely, please register at: attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1264830189345760257. Once registered, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
Abstract: Through their growth and metabolism, bacteria and algae regulate the pools and fluxes of carbon and nutrients in aquatic environments. As a result, the chemical composition of microbial biomass affects nearly all ecosystem functions by controlling: the availability of biologically essential nutrients, the transfer of energy and nutrients to higher trophic levels, and the degradation of organic matter. In this seminar, I will share two case studies that illustrate how the capacity of microbes to vary their elemental requirements is both underestimated and essential for understanding and managing nutrient cycles in aquatic ecosystems. In one example, I show that bacteria from lakes can vary their elemental ratios as much as all other organisms combined, and that this flexibility can serve to strengthen or weaken coupling among element cycles. In the second example, I will show how principles from ecological stoichiometry and biodiversity can be used to improve the sustainability impacts of algae-based biofuels.
Bio: Dr. Casey Godwin recently joined CIGLR as an Assistant Research Scientist. He has a Ph.D. in ecology, evolution, and behavior from the University of Minnesota. His research focuses on how the elemental requirements of bacteria and algae impact carbon and nutrient cycles in freshwater ecosystems. He has examined this theme in the context of stream algae as bio-indicators, functional diversity of freshwater bacteria, molecular responses of seston to phosphorus in Lake Superior, and most recently, the sustainable production of renewable fuels from algae. As part of CIGLR, he will be working on projects related to harmful algal blooms and hypoxia.
**Registration is not required, however please note important visitor information**
Important Visitor Information
All in-person seminar attendees are required to receive a visitor badge from the front desk at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory facility. Seminar attendees need to present a valid U.S. photo ID or green card. If you are a Foreign National, advance notification of at least 48 hours is needed so that security guidelines are followed. You will need to present your passport (a copy will NOT work). For questions regarding building access, or assistance in obtaining Foreign National clearance, please call 734-741-2394. Email contact: Scott.Purdy@noaa.gov
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu
Visit ciglr.seas.umich.edu for more information.

7/24/18: Hunter Carrick
2018-07-24 13:30 - 14:30 | NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, 4840 S State Rd, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, United States
Please join us for a Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 1:30-2:30 pm EDT
Location: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Lake Superior Hall
Presenter: Dr. Hunter Carrick, Central Michigan University
Title: Recent changes in Lake Michigan’s lower food web
Event Flyer
*Remote participation is available via webinar. To participate remotely, please register at: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/277823890655753731. Once registered, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
Abstract: Lake Michigan has experienced recent changes in the plankton assemblage coinciding with reductions in watershed nutrient loadings and the introduction of invasive species. As such, we evaluated the population dynamics of key plankton components in Lake Michigan along a series of near to offshore transects in southern Lake Michigan (2013-18). Chlorophyll analysis revealed that the picoplankton fraction (Ppico, <2 μm) contributed an average of >50% to total phytoplankton biomass, a percentage much larger than observed prior to 2005. Particulate P made up nearly all of the TP in the water column; this pool was mainly composed of poly-P present in pico-sized particles (>80% of total). The abundance of Ppico (5,200 to 70,700 cells/mL) was considerable and the assemblage was dominated by cyanobacteria taxa and pico-eukaryotes. The occurrence of diatoms (mainly Cyclotella and Discotella taxa) was limited to the nearshore region during the spring and early stratification periods. We estimated growth and grazing losses attributable to small grazers (microzooplankton, protists) and median-sized grazers (mesozooplankton, crustaceans) from enclosure experiments. Ppico had lower growth (0.20 +/- 0.27) relative to grazing losses by microzooplankton (-0.33 +/- 0.37), and limited clearance by mesozooplankton. These results indicate tight coupling between picoplankton and small grazers, suggesting that carbon flow from picoplankton to metazoa may dominate the current, trophic dynamics in the lake.
Bio: Hunter has 28 years of experience in the field of environmental science and education (post Ph.D). He received his B.S. Degree in Biology from Binghamton University in 1983, his M.S. Degree from the Bowling Green State University in 1985, and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1990. In 1990-91, He served as the first CILER/CIGLR post-doctoral fellow, when he contributed to a large NOAA project that studied coastal hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. He has served on the faculty at San Francisco State University, University at Buffalo, and Penn State University; he is currently is a professor at Central Michigan University.
Hunter’s research focuses on understanding the mechanisms that govern food web dynamics and nutrient cycling in large lakes, streams, and coastal ecosystems. He has published 130 scientific documents (papers, reports, book chapters) and authored 250 professional presentations. His body of work includes 50 completed research projects (total funding >$9 million). His current research evaluates recent changes in the lower food web in Lake Michigan.
**Registration is not required, however please note important visitor information**
Important Visitor Information
All in-person seminar attendees are required to receive a visitor badge from the front desk at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory facility. Seminar attendees need to present a valid U.S. photo ID or green card. If you are a Foreign National, advance notification of at least 48 hours is needed so that security guidelines are followed. You will need to present your passport (a copy will NOT work). For questions regarding building access, or assistance in obtaining Foreign National clearance, please call 734-741-2394. Email contact: Scott.Purdy@noaa.gov
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu
Visit ciglr.seas.umich.edu for more information.

8/1/18: Carol Stepien
2018-08-01 13:30 - 14:30 | NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, 4840 S State Rd, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, United States
Please join us for a Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 1:30-2:30 pm EDT
Location: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Lake Superior Hall
Presenter: Dr. Carol Stepien, Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory
Title: Understanding Marine and Aquatic Community Responses in Species Composition, Diversity, and Population Genetics: Targeted Metagenomics from eDNA and Plankton Samples
Event Flyer
*Remote participation is available via webinar. To participate remotely, please register at: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/7510707146728480769. Once registered, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
Abstract: Ecological sampling depends on accurate taxon identification, delineation, and abundances, yet is time consuming, expensive, involves considerable taxonomic expertise, and often is thwarted by lack of diagnostic morphological characters. Multiple targeted metagenomic analyses entailing (1) primer design for specific mitochondrial and nuclear DNA gene regions having appropriate levels of variation, (2) field sampling of water, plankton, sediment and/or gut contents, (3) high-throughput sequencing (HTS), and (4) custom bioinformatics offer means to rapidly and accurately simultaneously characterize the species diversity and compositions of entire communities, along with their relative representation and population genetic variation. This approach is useful for evaluating all taxonomic groups, all members, and all taxonomic levels of biological communities including rare and cryptic species, invasive species, and fishery stocks. Examples are presented of diagnostic assays that characterize fishes and invertebrates from environmental (e)DNA water and plankton samples in various marine and freshwater ecosystems, ranging from the hydrothermal vent plumes at Axial Seamount, the Salish Sea, Alaskan and Arctic waters, the Laurentian Great Lakes, and the Baltic Sea. These examples and analyses illustrate new ability to assess species diversity and population responses of biological communities to changing conditions, including acidification, temperature, harmful algal blooms, and hypoxia. Results from these metagenomic analyses demonstrate considerable application across marine and freshwater ecosystems at a scale, accuracy, complexity, and capacity for automation not otherwise feasible.

Bio: Carol Stepien has recently joined PMEL as our new Ocean Environment Research Division (OERD) leader. She comes to PMEL from directing the Lake Erie Research Center at the University of Toledo. She brings with her expertise in evolutionary biology, biogeography, and conservation genetics and genomics. Her special research interests include environmental DNA, sensor networks, genomic adaptations, and bioinformatics of marine animals, fisheries, and communities. She mentors several graduate students and postdoctoral associates and will continue to do so while at PMEL through the University of Toledo and the University of Washington’s Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean. During her time at the University of Toledo she was honored as a Distinguished University Professor of Ecology. She is also active in the community and enjoys participating in outreach events. Carol serves on the Editorial Board of the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, and is an editor for the new journal Ecological Processes and the genetics editor for the journal Biological Invasions.
**Registration is not required, however please note important visitor information**
Important Visitor Information
All in-person seminar attendees are required to receive a visitor badge from the front desk at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory facility. Seminar attendees need to present a valid U.S. photo ID or green card. If you are a Foreign National, advance notification of at least 48 hours is needed so that security guidelines are followed. You will need to present your passport (a copy will NOT work). For questions regarding building access, or assistance in obtaining Foreign National clearance, please call 734-741-2394. Email contact: Scott.Purdy@noaa.gov
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu
Visit ciglr.seas.umich.edu for more information.

5/7/19: Peter Annin
2019-05-07 16:00 - 18:00 | Palmer Commons, 100 Washtenaw Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109-2218, United States
Please join us for a Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Seminar Time: 4:00pm-5:00 pm EDT
Reception Time: 5:00pm-6:00pm EDT, must RSVP and be 21 years old
Location: University of Michigan Palmer Commons, Forum Hall
Presenter: Peter Annin
Title: Great Lakes Water Tension in the 21st Century
Event Flyer
*Remote participation is available via webinar. To participate remotely, please register at: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/8682880006774618381. Once registered, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
About the speaker:
Peter Annin is the director of the Mary Griggs Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation and the author of The Great Lakes Water Wars, the definitive work on the Great Lakes water diversion controversy. Before coming to Northland College in 2015, Peter served as a reporter at Newsweek, the associate director of the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources, and the managing director of the University of Notre Dame’s Environmental Change Initiative. He continues to report on the Great Lakes water diversion issue and published the second edition of the Great Lakes Water Wars in the fall of 2018.
About the lecture:
“Great Lakes Water Tension in the 21st Century”
Water diversion controversies continue to make news across the Great Lakes region. From Waukesha, Wisconsin, to the Foxconn factory south of Milwaukee, and the massive century-old water diversion in Chicago, the Great Lakes region continues to struggle with how best to keep Great Lakes water inside the Great Lakes watershed. In recent years, Southeast Wisconsin has emerged as the frontline in the Great Lakes water diversion debate. But the State of Michigan continues to play an influential role in regional water management decisions—as it has for decades. Last Fall Peter Annin published a major revision of his award-winning book, The Great Lakes Water Wars, to coincide with the 10th Anniversary of the Great Lakes Compact. The book includes chapters about all of the water diversion hotspots mentioned above, as well as many others. His talk will help cut through the confusion surrounding the Great Lakes water diversion debate and put Great Lakes water tensions in a regional, continental and global context.
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu
Visit ciglr.seas.umich.edu for more information.

6/17/19: Anika Kuczynski
2019-06-17 10:30 - 11:30 | NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, 4840 S State Rd, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, United States
Please join us for a Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 10:30-11:30 am EDT
Location: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Lake Superior Hall (Directions)
Presenter: Anika Kuczynski, National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research Ltd (NIWA) in Christchurch, New Zealand
Title: Modeling the Canopy Effect in the Great Lakes Cladophora Model v3
Event Flyer
Webinar Recording
About the presentation: “Modeling the Canopy Effect in the Great Lakes Cladophora Model v3”
For decades, nutrient-driven nuisance algal growth has wreaked havoc in the lower four Great Lakes. Empirical and mechanistic models have long been used to set open-lake nutrient targets and manage nutrient loads to meet those targets. Although there was some success in mitigating nuisance algal growth, ecosystem perturbations in the last two decades have resulted in a Cladophora resurgence. We offer improvements in the mechanistic Great Lakes Cladophora Model in version 3 (GLCM v3) to better inform management. Like earlier versions (GLCM v1 and v2), the model simulates algal biomass density (g dry mass m-2) and stored (cellular) phosphorus content (P as % dry mass) over the growth period. Earlier versions of the GLCM treated the algal mat as a lumped system, using the logistic growth model with a prescribed maximum biomass density coefficient to simulate the carrying capacity effect. While that approach resulted in a good model fit to biomass observations (normalized root mean square error, NRMSE =17.8%, and percent bias, PBIAS = -11.0%), it was not based on identified ecological mechanisms and empirical specification of the coefficient was undermined by significant intra- and inter-site variability. Two major advances are presented: 1) an improved characterization of the light and temperature response surfaces driving photosynthesis and respiration and 2) a segmented canopy approach for simulating the effect of self-shading (carrying capacity) on growth. In the GLCM v3, biomass accrual is mechanistically governed by light attenuation through the canopy and model agreement with observations improved (NRMSE = 13.6%, PBIAS = -5.7%). The introduced vertical extinction coefficient for light passing through the mat included in GLCM v3 may be directly measured and offers much less freedom as a tuning parameter than the prior approach using a maximum biomass coefficient. The GLCM v3 is a more mechanistic and robust tool than previous versions, designed to aid management of nuisance algal growth.

About the speaker: Dr. Anika Kuczynski is a water quality modeler at the National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) in Christchurch, New Zealand. She has experience in using and developing field, laboratory, and modeling approaches to inform river and lake management regarding nuisance algal growth. Anika’s background is in water quality modeling in the Laurentian Great Lakes and she is interested in mechanistic stream periphyton (attached algae) modeling and nutrient cycling. The focus of Dr. Kuczynski’s PhD (in environmental engineering at Michigan Tech) was mechanistic modeling of nuisance Cladophora (filamentous green alga) in the Great Lakes. At NIWA, Anika’s focus is on monitoring and modeling periphyton growth in streams, seeking to develop tools that can be applied by regional councils to work toward meeting national water quality standards. She currently leads a team in developing and testing methods using fixed and aerial (drone) red-green-blue and multispectral imagery to monitor stream periphyton cover and biomass. Clients and stakeholders who have received her work include the Northeast Ohio Region Sewer District, the Upstate Freshwater Institute, the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change (Canada), the Town of Ajax (Canada), Mercury Ltd. (hydropower company, New Zealand), Environment Canterbury (regional council, New Zealand), and the Ministry of the Environment (New Zealand).
**Registration is not required, however please note important visitor information**
Important Visitor Information
All in-person seminar attendees are required to receive a visitor badge from the front desk at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory facility. Seminar attendees need to present a valid U.S. photo ID or green card. If you are a Foreign National, advance notification of at least 48 hours is needed so that security guidelines are followed. You will need to present your passport (a copy will NOT work). For questions regarding building access, or assistance in obtaining Foreign National clearance, please call 734-741-2394. Email contact: Scott.Purdy@noaa.gov
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu
Visit ciglr.seas.umich.edu for more information.

7/22/19: Craig Williamson
2019-07-22 13:30 - 14:30 | NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, 4840 S State Rd, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, United States
Please join us for a Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 1:30-2:30 pm EDT
Location: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Lake Superior Hall
Presenter: Craig Williamson, Miami University
Title: “Implications of Changes in Water Clarity for Lake Ecosystem Structure and Function: Beyond the Holy Grail”
Event Flyer
Webinar Recording
Abstract: The holy grail of lake management can be found in the strong relationship between nutrient loading and chlorophyll concentrations. Increases in nutrients can lead to harmful algal blooms, cyanotoxins, and dead zones. These events plague western Lake Erie, coastal oceans, and many other inland waters. Yet a recent survey of 2,913 lakes in the USA shows that overall little has changed with either nutrients or chlorophyll in recent decades. In the meantime, lakes in many parts of the world are turning browner due to up to a doubling of terrestrially derived dissolved organic matter. Hot spots of this lake “browning” include northern Europe and northeastern North America. Lake browning is both a good news story involving recovery from anthropogenic acid deposition in response to the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, and a bad news story related to climate change and increases in precipitation and extreme storm events. Other lakes such as Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are increasing in water clarity. What are the implications of these changes in water clarity for ecosystem structure and function? Reductions in water transparency can increase surface water temperatures, lead to stronger thermal stratification, contribute to oxygen depletion, and facilitate increases in invasive species. Anoxia can in turn stimulate regeneration of phosphorus from the sediments, and combined with warmer surface water temperatures, increase the potential for harmful algal blooms that further decrease water transparency. Both increases and decreases in water clarity also have important implications for the success of invasive and native fish species, fisheries management, as well as solar UV disinfection of parasites and pathogens in lakes. Understanding the causes and consequences of change in water transparency is essential to effective management of lakes and the important ecosystem services that they provide.

Bio: Craig Williamson is the Ohio Eminent Scholar of Ecosystem Ecology at Miami University in Ohio where he leads the Global Change Limnology Laboratory. His expertise is in the ecology of UV radiation and climate change, with a current focus on the effects of water clarity on lake ecosystems. His research is based at the Lacawac Sanctuary and Biological Field Station in the northeastern Pennsylvania, but extends worldwide. Research questions range from UV effects on the ecology of zooplankton, larval fish, and infectious diseases, to deploying advanced sensors to decipher the sentinel responses of lakes to climate change. He serves on the United Nations Environment Programme Environmental Effects Assessment Panel (UNEP EEAP), is active in the Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON) where he leads the Climate Sentinels Working Group, and is the Chief Scientific Adviser of the Pocono Lake Ecological Observatory Network (PLEON), an outreach program on public education and monitoring of lakes in northeastern Pennsylvania.
**Registration is not required, however please note important visitor information**
Important Visitor Information
All in-person seminar attendees are required to receive a visitor badge from the front desk at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory facility. Seminar attendees need to present a valid U.S. photo ID or green card. If you are a Foreign National, advance notification of at least 48 hours is needed so that security guidelines are followed. You will need to present your passport (a copy will NOT work). For questions regarding building access, or assistance in obtaining Foreign National clearance, please call 734-741-2394. Email contact: Scott.Purdy@noaa.gov
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu
Visit ciglr.seas.umich.edu for more information.

9/20/19: Jay Austin
2019-09-20 13:30 - 14:30 | NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, 4840 S State Rd, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, United States
Please join us for a Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 1:30-2:30 pm EDT
Location: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Lake Superior Hall
Presenter: Jay Austin, University of Minnesota – Duluth
Title: What does it really mean for a lake to “turn over”? Radiatively driven convection in a deep lake.
Event Flyer
Webinar Recording
Abstract: Due to the existence of the temperature of maximum density for freshwater (3.98C), springtime heating of a freshwater lake from incident sunlight can result in a process called radiatively-driven convection, where heating at the surface of the lake makes surface waters denser, resulting in full water-column convection. In a deep lake like Lake Superior, this process can dominate the circulation of the lake for two to three months every year, and controls the vertical redistribution of physical, biological, and geochemical properties in the lake during this period. Characteristic features of the convection cells produced are discerned from a set of observations made in Lake Superior over the last several years, from autonomous underwater gliders, turbulence profilers, and moorings, including a large, two-point mooring that consisted of a two-dimensional array of thermistors 180m on a side. Glider data suggests that warm water produced near the surface convect into the lake in chimney-like structures with lateral scales on the order of 10m, and the cells themselves have lateral scales on the order of 100m. Observed vertical velocities on the order of 1cm/s. Temperature anomalies on the order of 0.1K build up during the day, and the water column tends to fully homogenize each night. Developing a better understanding of the dynamics of this convective process is essential to our understanding of the annual development of deep, dimictic lakes.

Bio: Dr. Austin is a Professor at the Large Lakes Observatory and in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. He is a Physical Limnologist with broad interests, studying a wide range of phenomenology on large lakes around the world. His interests include, but are not limited to, thermal structure, the role of ice, climate change impacts, acoustics, and convective processes. He is primarily an observationalist, utilizing moorings, autonomous gliders and autonomous profilers as well as historical data to study lake processes. He also utilizes numerical modeling techniques, largely to study the sensitivity of lake systems to climate change. He is also interested in pedagogy and outreach. Dr. Austin’s undergraduate degrees in Physics and Math are from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and his PhD (1999) is from the MIT/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Physical Oceanography. He has been at UMD since 2005.
**Registration is not required, however please note important visitor information**
Important Visitor Information
All in-person seminar attendees are required to receive a visitor badge from the front desk at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory facility. Seminar attendees need to present a valid U.S. photo ID or green card. If you are a Foreign National, advance notification of at least 48 hours is needed so that security guidelines are followed. You will need to present your passport (a copy will NOT work). For questions regarding building access, or assistance in obtaining Foreign National clearance, please call 734-741-2394. Email contact: Scott.Purdy@noaa.gov
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu
Visit ciglr.seas.umich.edu for more information.

10/8/19: Joannes Westerink
2019-10-08 10:30 - 11:30 | NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, 4840 S State Rd, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, United States
Please join us for a Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 10:30-11:30 am EDT
Location: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Lake Superior Hall
Presenter: Joannes Westerink, University of Notre Dame
Title: Towards Heterogeneous Process, Scale, and Model Coupling in Simulating the Hydrodynamics of the Coastal Ocean
Event Flyer
Webinar Recording
About the presentation: Hurricane wind wave, storm surge, and current environments in the coastal ocean and adjacent coastal floodplain are characterized by their high energy and by their spatial variability. These processes impact offshore energy assets, navigation, ports and harbors, deltas, wetlands, and coastal communities. The potential for an enormous catastrophic impact in terms of loss of life and economic losses is substantial.
Computational models for wind waves and storm driven currents and surge must provide a high level of grid resolution, fully couple the wind wave and long wave processes, and perform quickly for risk assessment, flood mitigation system design, and forecasting purposes. In order to accomplish this, high performance scalable codes are essential. To this end, we have developed an MPI based domain decomposed unstructured grid framework that minimizes global communications, efficiently handles localized sub-domain to sub-domain communication, applies a local inter-model paradigm with all model to model communications being kept on identical cores for sub-domains, and carefully manages output by assigning specialized cores for this purpose. Continuous Galerkin (CG) and Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) implementations are examined. Performance of explicit and implicit implementations of the wave-current coupled system on up to 32,000 cores for various platforms is evaluated.
The system has been extensively validated with an ever increasing amount of wave, water level and current data that has being collected for recent storms including Hurricanes Katrina (2005), Rita (2005), Gustav (2008), Ike (2008), and Sandy (2012). The modeling system helps understand the physics of hurricane storm surges including processes such as geostrophically driven forerunner, shelf waves that propagate far away from the storm, wind wave – surge interaction, surge capture and propagation by protruding deltaic river systems, the influence of storm size and forward speed, and frictionally controlled inland penetration.
These models are being applied by the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) in the development of the recently completed hurricane risk reduction system in Southern Louisiana as well as for the development of FEMA Digital Flood Insurance Rate Maps (DFIRMS) for Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and other Gulf and Atlantic coast states. NOAA applies the models in extra-tropical and tropical storm surge forecasting.
Current development is focused on incorporating a wider range of physics affecting coastal and inland water levels as well as forces on infrastructure including large scale baroclinically driven processes, rainfall runoff in upland areas and on the coastal floodplain, and wave run-up. This is accomplished with an interleafing framework in which heterogeneous models focused on a select range of processes are coupled over the same domain and/or specific targeted equations that are dynamically assigned to changing portions of the domain as appropriate to the prevailing flow conditions. This is all done in a dynamically load balanced framework. Algorithmic development is focused on DG solvers, ideally suited for the associated strongly advective flows, allow super-parametric elements for p=1 and p=2 and iso-parametric elements for p=3 in order to achieve improved convergence rates and overall runtime efficiency, and allow for the selection of localized physics on the elemental level.

About the speaker: Joannes Westerink is the Joseph and Nona Ahearn Professor of Computational Science and Engineering and the Henry J. Massman Chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences at the University of Notre Dame. He obtained his B.S. (1979) and M.S. (1981) degrees in Civil Engineering at the State University of New York at Buffalo and Ph.D. (1984) degree in Civil Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Westerink develops high resolution heterogeneous unstructured mesh, multi-physics, multi-scale hydrodynamic codes and models for the hydrodynamics of the coastal ocean and has successfully transitioned these to practitioners for a wide range of applications including the analysis and design of major flood control projects and coastal ocean water level forecasting systems. Westerink has pioneered the successful use of global to channel scale highly heterogeneous unstructured mesh coastal ocean models with mesh resolution varying by up to four orders of magnitude. This encompasses the optimization of algorithms; development of high performance codes in vector and parallel computing environments; the linkages of circulation models to weather and short wind wave models; model verification, validation, and uncertainty quantification; and the application of codes to oceans, continental shelf regions, estuaries, rivers, and coastal flood plains. Westerink is the co-developer, with Rick Luettich of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Clint Dawson of the University of Texas at Austin, of the widely used ADCIRC finite element based shallow water equation code. ADCIRC has evolved into a community based coastal hydrodynamics code with wide ranging applications within academia, government, and the private sector worldwide. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration all use ADCIRC in support of coastal water level and flooding analyses and forecasts.
Westerink was a team co-lead in the U.S. Army’s Interagency Performance Evaluation Taskforce (IPET) investigation of the Hurricane Katrina (2005) flooding failures in Louisiana. He led ADCIRC storm surge model development for the USACE’s New Orleans and vicinity Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System. He also led the ADCIRC model development for the FEMA Flood Insurance Studies in coastal Louisiana and Texas. He served as a commissioner on the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority and has served as an advisor for the UNESCO Joint WMO-IOC Technical Commission for Oceanography and Marine Meteorology on Enhancing Forecasting Capabilities for North Indian Ocean Storm Surges. He currently serves as an International Advisory Board Member of CIGIDEN, Chile’s National Research Center for Integrated Natural Disaster Management.
Westerink’s current research includes: the development of high order h-p adaptive Discontinuous Galerkin based coastal circulation codes; incorporating phase resolving wave processes including run-up directly into circulation codes; understanding resonant basin and shelf modes and shelf dissipation processes; incorporating local rainfall and small scale channel routing capabilities into shallow water based codes; sea ice interaction with wind waves and circulation; and downscaling global ocean models into global high resolution coastal models to account for baroclinicity and sea level fluctuations. Current applications regions include developing the next generation of ESTOFS water level forecast models for NOAA focusing on Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands; the U.S. East and Gulf coasts, and Alaska.
**Registration is not required, however please note important visitor information**
Important Visitor Information
All in-person seminar attendees are required to receive a visitor badge from the front desk at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory facility. Seminar attendees need to present a valid U.S. photo ID or green card. If you are a Foreign National, advance notification of at least 48 hours is needed so that security guidelines are followed. You will need to present your passport (a copy will NOT work). For questions regarding building access, or assistance in obtaining Foreign National clearance, please call 734-741-2394. Email contact: Scott.Purdy@noaa.gov
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu
Visit ciglr.seas.umich.edu for more information.

03/3/20: Maureen Coleman
2020-03-03 13:00 - 14:00 | NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, 4840 S State Rd, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, United States
Please join us for a Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 1:00-2:00 pm EDT
Location: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Lake Superior Hall
Presenter: Maureen Coleman, University of Chicago
Title: Linking microbial communities and biogeochemistry across the Laurentian Great Lakes
Event Flyer
Webinar Recording
About the presentation: The Laurentian Great Lakes hold 20% of Earth’s surface freshwater and provide essential ecosystem services. Moreover, as an interconnected waterway that spans strong environmental gradients, the Great Lakes represent a unique natural laboratory for understanding how physical, chemical, and biological forces interact to shape microbial communities and biogeochemistry. Here we explore the drivers of microbial diversity and activity across the Great Lakes, using samples collected as part of an ongoing multi-year time series. First we characterized community composition across lakes, depths, seasons, and years. We found that depth and light are strong drivers of community structure in stratified water columns. Across surface waters, we found distinct microbial signatures in each of the Great Lakes, reflecting their biogeochemical variability. To explore metabolic functions, we reconstructed hundreds of microbial genomes and created a microbial tree of life for the Laurentian Great Lakes. We mapped ecological distribution patterns for these genomes and found distinct distributions for taxa and metabolisms across lakes and depths. We focus here on two important groups for ecology and biogeochemistry, the cyanobacteria and nitrifying Bacteria and Archaea. Our work represents the first picture of microbial diversity across the entire Laurentian Great Lakes and is an essential baseline from which to monitor future ecosystem change.

About the speaker: Dr. Coleman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences at University of Chicago. She is a microbial ecologist who studies the causes and consequences of microbial diversity in aquatic systems. Currently her lab is busy characterizing microbial communities, genomic diversity, and biogeochemistry across the Laurentian Great Lakes. She is also cultivating new microbial lineages and developing genetic tools to study their biology. She holds an undergraduate degree in biology from Dartmouth College and a Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from MIT. She was a postdoc at MIT & Caltech before joining Uniersity of Chicago in 2012.
**Registration is not required, however please note important visitor information**
Important Visitor Information
All in-person seminar attendees are required to receive a visitor badge from the front desk at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory facility. Seminar attendees need to present a valid U.S. photo ID or green card. If you are a Foreign National, advance notification of at least 48 hours is needed so that security guidelines are followed. You will need to present your passport (a copy will NOT work). For questions regarding building access, or assistance in obtaining Foreign National clearance, please call 734-741-2394. Email contact: Scott.Purdy@noaa.gov
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu
Visit ciglr.seas.umich.edu for more information.

POSTPONED; Date TBD
2020-03-31 | NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, 4840 S State Rd, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, United States
The March 31 seminar is postponed to a future TBD date.
Please join us for a Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 1:30-2:30 pm EDT
Location: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Lake Superior Hall
Presenter: Dr. Michael McKay, Executive Director and Professor – Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research
Title: Life under ice: The rise and fall of Lake Erie’s winter algal bloom
Event Flyer
Webinar Registration: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/5710606513973740043
About the presentation:Ice cover presents a logistical obstacle to our full understanding of function of north temperate ecosystems. Reflecting this, ecosystem models frequently underestimate, or even neglect biological parameters associated with ice cover. Despite the perceived inhospitable environment imposed by cold temperatures and ice cover during winter in Lake Erie, work over the past decade has revealed numerous examples of high biological activity with abundant phytoplankton biomass dominated by psychrophilic, filamentous diatoms. The diatoms are physiologically robust and the diatom bloom persists through early spring, eventually contributing to carbon export in Lake Erie’s central basin. During mild winters, the bloom is reduced, likely due to light limitation coincident with deep wind-aided mixing. These surveys have demonstrated that diatom assemblages possess ice nucleating abilities, a characteristic promoting ice formation and which enables the winter diatoms to maintain a favorable position in the photic zone when the lake is ice covered. Our recent efforts have focused on mechanisms of bloom decline where chytrid parasites and other pathogens are implicated. Broadening the impact of this research has been a unique partnership with the U.S. Coast Guard promoting citizen science in support of winter data collection.

About the speaker: In 2019, Mike McKay joined the University of Windsor where he serves as the Executive Director of the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research and Professor in the School of the Environment. Mike received undergraduate- and graduate degrees in Biology from Queen’s University at Kingston and McGill University (Montréal), respectively. Upon completion of his doctoral work, he held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and with the University of Delaware where he served concurrently at the Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, NY. It was during this period that Mike became active in research on aquatic nutrient cycling through his involvement with the ecosystem-scale ocean iron fertilization projects being conducted by scientific personnel from Brookhaven at that time. Mike’s research expanded to include large lakes on his arrival to Bowling Green State University where he served on the faculty for over 21 years studying the biogeochemical cycling of nutrients, phytoplankton and bacterial community dynamics and more recently, winter limnology involving research coordination with icebreaking programs of Canadian- and U.S. Coast Guards.
Among Mike’s research honors, he was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Fellowship in 2005 where he was resident at the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (Germany) and in 2013, was named Visiting Scholar at the Large Lakes Observatory of the University of Minnesota. He is the author of over 95 peer-reviewed manuscripts, is a co-recipient of the 2019 John Martin award from ASLO and currently serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Great Lakes Research.
**Registration is not required, however please note important visitor information**
Important Visitor Information
All in-person seminar attendees are required to receive a visitor badge from the front desk at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory facility. Seminar attendees need to present a valid U.S. photo ID or green card. If you are a Foreign National, advance notification of at least 48 hours is needed so that security guidelines are followed. You will need to present your passport (a copy will NOT work). For questions regarding building access, or assistance in obtaining Foreign National clearance, please call 734-741-2394. Email contact: Scott.Purdy@noaa.gov
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu
Visit ciglr.seas.umich.edu for more information.

POSTPONED; Date TBD
2020-06-02 10:30 - 11:30 | NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, 4840 S State Rd, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, United States
The June 2 seminar is postponed to a future TBD date.
Please join us for a Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 10:30-11:30 am EDT
Location: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Lake Superior Hall
Presenter: John Kelly (Loyola University Chicago) & John Scott (University of Illinois)
Title: TBD
About the presentation: TBD

About the speaker: TBD
**Registration is not required, however please note important visitor information**
Important Visitor Information
All in-person seminar attendees are required to receive a visitor badge from the front desk at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory facility. Seminar attendees need to present a valid U.S. photo ID or green card. If you are a Foreign National, advance notification of at least 48 hours is needed so that security guidelines are followed. You will need to present your passport (a copy will NOT work). For questions regarding building access, or assistance in obtaining Foreign National clearance, please call 734-741-2394. Email contact: Scott.Purdy@noaa.gov
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu
Visit ciglr.seas.umich.edu for more information.

07/22/20: Aaron Fisk
2020-07-22 14:00 - 15:00 | Virtual, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, United States
Please join us for a Virtual Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 2:00-3:00 pm EDT
Location: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Lake Superior Hall
Presenter: Aaron Fisk, University of Windsor
Title: New Insights and Future Direction in Great Lakes Food Web Research
Event Flyer
Webinar Recording
About the presentation: Food webs are a representation of trophic relationships between organisms within an ecosystem and have been a central tenet in ecology for almost a century. Quantifying connections and the strength of energy and biomass pathways in food webs are a key component to effective management and conservation of ecosystem services, particularly fisheries. The rich history of fish diet and food web research in the Great Lakes, with its high biodiversity and variable habitats, has increased our understanding of mechanisms and processes that underpin aquatic food web structure and function. This seminar will present comparisons of trophic relationships across the five Great Lakes using stable isotope data recently generated through comprehensive sampling plans from the CSMI program. Key unknowns in Great Lakes food webs and new methods to assess the diet of organisms will reviewed and critiqued.

About the speaker: Aaron Fisk is Professor and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Changing Great Lakes Ecosystems in the School of the Environment and GLIER at the University of Windsor. His research is focused on animal movements and food webs, mainly in the Great Lakes, but also in the Arctic and tropical marine environments. He has > 250 career journal publications with an H-index of 62 and more than 14,500 citations on Google Scholar. In his 12 years at UWindsor, he has secured more than $23 million in direct funding, including the recently funded Real Time Aquatic Ecosystem Observation network (RAEON) – a $15.9 million investment in infrastructure to study the Great Lakes, and recently held a Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation on integrating Inuit fisherman into the management of fish stocks. Eleven of his former students and post doc hold tenure track faculty positions in Canada, USA and Norway.
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu
Visit ciglr.seas.umich.edu for more information.

08/12/20: Max Herzog
2020-08-12 13:00 - 14:00 | Virtual, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, United States
Please join us for a Virtual Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 1:00-2:00 pm EDT
Location: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Lake Superior Hall
Presenter: Max Herzog, Cleveland Water Alliance
Title: Building a Smart Lake Erie
Event Flyer
Webinar Recording
About the presentation: Innovation has long been a part of life and work on Lake Erie. Its unique water resources set the stage for one of humanity’s greatest periods of technological advancement and continues to drive one of the most dynamic regional economies on the globe. Yet, despite its essential role in commerce, industry, and entrepreneurship, Lake Erie has been historically underleveraged as an economic asset and catalyst of innovation.
The 2014 Toledo Water Crisis began to change all of that. Lake Erie communities were galvanized to action as over 500,000 residents were denied access to safe public drinking water for three days. Harmful Algal Blooms threatened an estimated $1.5 Billion of negative regional economic impact over the next three decades; It became clear that a new set of solutions were required to address the scale of our water quality challenges.
As a result, the states of Michigan and Ohio as well as the province of Ontario committed to reduce their joint nutrient pollution of the Lake by 40% by 2040. While this goal was ambitious and necessary, it was not accompanied by a corresponding investment in monitoring infrastructure. This means that it is near impossible to reliably measure progress towards that goal at a macro scale and the efficiency of individual mitigation efforts on a micro scale.
Hence the need for a Smart Lake. This new breed of Smart & Connected Infrastructure creates and leverages the data required to enable intelligent regional water management by a cross-sector collaborative of institutions and communities. This solution will function by delivering three fundamental interventions in the system producing HABs:
– Open Water: Predictive analytics and integrated sensing deliver accurate warnings that mitigate direct impacts.
– Rural & Urban Watersheds: Distributed IoT sensing and intelligent green infrastructure evaluate and optimize mitigation efforts
– Edge-of-Field: Real-time sensing and control actively mitigate nutrient runoff and deliver ROIs for agricultural best practices
About the speaker: Max Herzog is an Impact Innovation Professional dedicated to engaging diverse stakeholders in the development of tools and strategies that drive community development and resilience at the regional level. Max is currently working on next-generation water technology and intelligent water systems with the Cleveland Water Alliance. In his three years with CWA, Max has spearheaded and contributed to regional innovation initiatives that activated over fifty entrepreneurial water solutions and one hundred stakeholder organizations from Windsor to Buffalo. As Program Manager, he coordinates the bi-national ecosystem of partners that drive the Water Alliance’s cluster of programs and technologies.
At Oberlin College, where he earned Bachelor’s degrees in political science and environmental studies, Max participated in sustainable consulting projects with Foresight Design Initiative and social-impact research with The Oberlin Research Group. He also worked to educate youth on a variety of topics, including sustainable food systems and urban planning and design, with the Foresight Prep Seminars.
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu
Visit ciglr.seas.umich.edu for more information.

11/03/20: Jay Martin
2020-11-03 13:00 - 14:00 | Virtual
Please join us for a Virtual Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 1:00-2:00 pm EDT
Location: Virtual
Presenter: Jay Martin, Ohio State University
Title: Developing a Public-Private Partnership to Manage Elevated Phosphorus Fields For Agricultural Production and Water Quality
Event Flyer
Webinar Recording
About the presentation: We established a Private Public Partnership (PPP) to identify and manage agricultural fields in the Western Lake Erie Basin where large reductions in phosphorus are likely to be realized. Fields with high risk of phosphorus runoff were identified based on soil test phosphorus levels two times greater than agronomic recommendations. Phosphorus runoff from these fields cannot be managed by only in field practices because fertilizer application is not required for crop production. Therefore, to further reduce phosphorus runoff from these sites requires the use of edge of field BMPs. Establishing a PPP allowed private partners to maintain proprietary data while assisting the public partners in identifying fields with high risk of phosphorus loss. The private partners, farmers and their consultants, best know their field characteristics and can facilitate field identification and the selection of conservation plans that are likely to be effective. Through collaboration with 4R Certification Program, Nutrient Service Providers, and farmers we are implementing and monitoring the impacts of conservation practices on 14 elevated phosphorus fields in the Maumee Watershed. Preliminary results from the project will describe the characteristics and runoff water quality from elevated phosphorus fields. The structure and results from this research demonstrate the value of collaborating with NSPs to identify legacy sources of nutients, and the value of forming PPPs when proprietary information can limit the identication and accessibility of sites where environmental management practices can be most beneficial.

About the speaker: Jay Martin is a professor of ecological engineering who analyzes and integrates human and natural systems. As a faculty member in the Department of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering and a Faculty co-lead for the OSU Sustainability Institute, he seeks to use natural systems to improve water quality and increase sustainability. His interdisciplinary research links field studies, watershed models, and socio-economic analyses with stakeholder groups to investigate connections between downstream water quality and management practices in upstream watersheds.
Currently, Dr. Martin is leading a $5M USDA-NIFA project to establish a Public-Private Partnership with crop consultants and farmers, to identify fields with elevated nutrient levels where management practices will be installed and monitored in an effort to reduce nutrient runoff. He is also leading an interdisciplinary research team to evaluate the impacts of a large green infrastructure project, “Blueprint Columbus,” on water, communities, ecosystems, economics and public health within the City of Columbus. Outside of Ohio, Dr. Martin’s other research has included Mayan agroecosystems in southern Mexico, biodigesters in Costa Rica, Andes wetlands in Colombia, and the use of algae as a soil amendment by Oʻahu farmers in Hawaii. As of 2019, he has published over 65 peer-reviewed articles, successfully advised over 35 Graduate Students and Post Docs, and been awarded more than $17M to support his research program. He is certified as a Senior Ecologist by the Ecological Society of America and a Professional Engineer in Ohio.
**Registration is not required**
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu
Visit ciglr.seas.umich.edu for more information.

12/09/20: Charles Menza
2020-12-09 13:00 - 14:00 | Virtual
Please join us for a Virtual Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 1:00-2:00 pm EST
Location: Virtual
Presenter: Charles Menza, (NOAA National Ocean Service, National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, Marine Spatial Ecology Division, Biogeography Branch. Silver Spring, MD)
Title: Characterizing benthic habitats using remotely-sensed bathymetry and reflectance in high-priority areas of the Great Lakes
Event Flyer
Webinar Recording
About the presentation: Remotely-sensed bathymetry and reflectance data are ideal for identifying and characterizing benthic habitats across the Great Lakes. They generally are collected over large swaths of area, provide data at sufficient spatial resolution to discriminate among important features and substrates, and are very accurate. An added bonus is that much of the nearshore zone of the Great Lakes already has remotely-sensed bathymetry and reflectance data. In this seminar I will present a collaborative effort by the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries and the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory to explore and characterize benthic habitats in Lakes Michigan and Huron. This effort includes collection and analysis of new multibeam bathymetry surveys, interpretation of existing nearshore LiDAR surveys, and ground-truthing from underwater videos at over 800 sites. When brought together these data provided digital maps characterizing the geomorphology, substrate composition and biological cover across 150 square kilometers of lakebed. I will discuss key strategies important to starting similar mapping efforts and scaling up, such as map prioritizations, predictive habitat modeling, and digital habitat map dissemination.

About the speaker: Charles Menza is senior scientist at the NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science in Silver Spring, Maryland. Mr. Menza is a spatial ecologist focused on habitat mapping and modeling which supports spatial planning in the ocean and Great Lakes. For the past 7 years he has worked alongside the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries in the Great Lakes and has led several field missions to map underwater habitats.
**Registration is not required**
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu
Visit ciglr.seas.umich.edu for more information.

05/05/21: Rajendra Poudel
2021-05-05 13:00 - 14:00 | Virtual
Please join us for a Virtual Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 1:00-2:00 pm EST
Location: Virtual
Presenter: Rajendra Poudel – CollabraLink Tech, NOAA OAR
Title: Economic Value of Selected Wetlands in the United States
Event Flyer
Webinar Registration: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/8896196273847640590
About the presentation: This research provides a benefit transfer model of willingness-to-pay (WTP) for wetlands’ conservation in the United States. The validity of the estimated wetland’s willingness-to-pay values is also examined. This study extends and provides improvements to wetlands valuation literature by using information obtained from 21 study sites – 19 natural and 2 constructed. Benefit transfer values for wetlands are imputed to six policy wetland sites – 5 natural and 1 constructed. Regression results are reported for one of eight models estimated and examined with four validity tests. Based on these tests, transfer error adjustments of WTP estimates for policy sites are reported.
Keywords: benefit transfer, meta-analysis, policy sites, study sites, valuation, and wetland
About the speaker: Rajendra Poudel holds a doctorate degree in Forestry Economics and is a lead economist in CollabraLink Tech works in Oceanic and Atmospheric Research/NOAA, Silver Spring, MD. Dr. Poudel also worked as a postdoctoral fellow in University of Minnesota, Duluth on ecosystem service of largest freshwater lakes on earth. His career interest is in natural resources policy with particular emphasis on environmental conservation, boosting economy, and national security.
**Registration is not required**
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu
Visit ciglr.seas.umich.edu for more information.

11/18/21: Silvia Newell
2021-11-18 14:00 - 15:00 | Virtual
Please join us for a Virtual Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 2:00-3:00 pm EST
Location: Virtual
Presenter: Silvia Newell – Associate Professor, Wright State University
Title: Nitrogen availability as a driver of HABs and toxins: the missing piece for modeling?
Event Flyer
Webinar Recording
About the presentation: External nutrient loading (along with temperature and precipitation) is the main driver of annual harmful algal blooms in Lake Erie. These blooms are dominated by the cyanobacteria Microcystis, which produces microcystin toxins, but toxicity and biomass are not always correlated and can vary from year to year and within a season. Microcystis is an excellent scavenger for ammonium and can outcompete other organisms for this preferred ammonium supply. Ammonium is therefore both taken up by cells and recycled rapidly in eutrophic systems, making it difficult to determine availability snapshot concentration measurements. Studies on ammonium turnover rates in the water column of Lake Erie, as well as supply from sediments, suggest that internal loading is a critical component of sustaining bloom biomass. Using ammonium recycling rates in mixed models also results in strong models for concentration of microcystins (R^2 =0.84 or better), suggesting that ammonium availability might be key for modeling and predicting bloom toxicity.
About the speaker: Dr. Silvia Newell is an Associate Professor of Aquatic Biogeochemistry at Wright State University in Dayton, OH. Her research focuses on nitrogen cycling in eutrophic systems around the globe, from the Great Lakes to Lake Okeechobee to Taihu, China. She was the co-chair of the HABs Collaborative from 2018-2020 and currently serves as the President of the Lake Erie Area Research Network. She is currently NSF-funded on projects in Lake Superior, Lake Erie, and the Maumee River. She is also part of the monitoring team assessing the H2Ohio wetlands.
**Registration is not required**
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu
Visit ciglr.seas.umich.edu for more information.

12/06/21: Michael McKay
2021-12-06 14:00 - 15:00 | Virtual
Please join us for a Virtual Great Lakes Seminar Series presentation:
Time: 2:00-3:00 pm EST
Location: Virtual
Presenter: Michael McKay – Executive Director and Professor; Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research; University of Windsor
Title: Life under ice: The rise and fall of Lake Erie’s winter algal bloom
Event Flyer
Webinar Recording
About the presentation: Ice cover presents a logistical obstacle to our full understanding of function of north temperate ecosystems. Reflecting this, ecosystem models frequently underestimate, or even neglect biological parameters associated with ice cover. Despite the perceived inhospitable environment imposed by cold temperatures and ice cover during winter in Lake Erie, work over the past decade has revealed numerous examples of high biological activity with abundant phytoplankton biomass dominated by psychrophilic, filamentous diatoms. The diatoms are physiologically robust and the diatom bloom persists through early spring, eventually contributing to carbon export in Lake Erie’s central basin. During mild winters, the bloom is reduced, likely due to light limitation coincident with deep wind-aided mixing. These surveys have demonstrated that diatom assemblages possess ice nucleating abilities, a characteristic promoting ice formation and which enables the winter diatoms to maintain a favorable position in the photic zone when the lake is ice covered. Our recent efforts have focused on mechanisms of bloom decline where chytrid parasites and other pathogens are implicated. Broadening the impact of this research has been a unique partnership with the U.S. Coast Guard promoting citizen science in support of winter data collection.
About the speaker: In 2019, Mike McKay joined the University of Windsor where he serves as the Executive Director of the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research and Professor in the School of the Environment. Mike received undergraduate- and graduate degrees in Biology from Queen’s University at Kingston and McGill University (Montréal), respectively. Upon completion of his doctoral work, he held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and with the University of Delaware where he served concurrently at the Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, NY. It was during this period that Mike became active in research on aquatic nutrient cycling through his involvement with the ecosystem-scale ocean iron fertilization projects being conducted by scientific personnel from Brookhaven at that time. Mike’s research expanded to include large lakes on his arrival to Bowling Green State University where he served on the faculty for over 21 years studying the biogeochemical cycling of nutrients, phytoplankton and bacterial community dynamics and more recently, winter limnology involving research coordination with icebreaking programs of Canadian- and U.S. Coast Guards.
Among Mike’s research honors, he was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Fellowship in 2005 where he was resident at the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (Germany) and in 2013, was named Visiting Scholar at the Large Lakes Observatory of the University of Minnesota. He is the author of over 95 peer-reviewed manuscripts, is a co-recipient of the 2019 John Martin award from ASLO and currently serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Great Lakes Research.
**Registration is not required**
_____________________________________________________
Questions? Contact Mary Ogdahl: ogdahlm@umich.edu
Visit ciglr.seas.umich.edu for more information.
