Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments is hosting a fall symposium Oct. 30. The Symposium will be in the Rackham Amphitheater on the fourth floor of the Rackham Building, 915 E. Washington St., Ann Arbor. From 1:30-2:45 p.m., there will be an overview of GLISA and its funded research projects. At 3 p.m., authors from the National Climate Assessment Midwest Technical Input Team will summarize climate trends and anticipated impacts of climate change in the Great Lakes region.
Climate change is expected to increase the frequency of intense spring rain storms in the Great Lakes region throughout this century and will likely add to the number of harmful algal blooms and "dead zones" in Lake Erie, unless additional conservation actions are taken, according to a University of Michigan aquatic ecologist. Climate models suggest that the number of intense spring rain storms in the region could double by the end of the century, contributing to an overall 30 to 40 percent increase in spring precipitation, said Donald Scavia, director of the U-M’s Graham Sustainability Institute.
Several University of Michigan researchers will be among the speakers at next week's Great Lakes Week in Detroit, a gathering of several organizations concerned with preserving and restoring the health of the Great Lakes. The week's events will include meetings of the International Joint Commission, the Great Lakes Commission and the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition's Great Lakes Restoration Conference. The events will take place at the Westin Book Cadillac Hotel and Wayne State University.
In an op-ed article appearing this month in NOLA, SNRE Professor Don Scavia talks about the Gulf of Mexico dead zone: its natural and political causes and two possible paths to resolve the annual problem. This year's zone, at 6,800 square miles, would have been larger if not for Tropical Storm Don stirring the waters.
Faced with increasing risks of intense storms, heat stress, clean water availability and economic hardship, municipal leaders are seeking high-quality, location-specific analyses to help plan for climate change impacts. That is the focus of a new $1.2 million University of Michigan research project called the Great Lakes Adaptation Assessment for Cities.
A report released by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts a 2011 Gulf dead zone of at least 8,500 square miles, which would make it the largest dead zone on record, due to increased stream flows from the flooding of the Mississippi River. "Stream flows were nearly double normal during May, delivering massive amounts of nutrients to the Gulf, and that's what drives the dead zone," said Don Scavia, Special Counsel to the U-M President for Sustainability, director of the Graham Sustainability Institute and SNRE professor and a member of NOAA's Gulf hypoxia research team.
Extreme flooding of the Mississippi River this spring is expected to result in the largest Gulf of Mexico "dead zone" on record, according to a University of Michigan aquatic ecologist and his colleagues. The 2011 forecast, released today by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), calls for a Gulf dead zone of between 8,500 and 9,421 square miles, an area roughly the size of New Hampshire.
The ongoing spread of non-native mussels in the Great Lakes has caused "massive, ecosystem-wide changes" throughout lakes Michigan and Huron, two of the planet's largest freshwater lakes, according to a new University of Michigan-led study. The blitzkrieg advance of two closely related species of mussels—the zebra and quagga—is stripping the lakes of their life-supporting algae, resulting in a remarkable ecological transformation and threatening the multibillion-dollar U.S. commercial and recreational Great Lakes fisheries.
The University of Michigan and Michigan State University will jointly lead a federally funded effort to help Great Lakes-region residents anticipate and adapt to climate change. The interdisciplinary effort will be funded by a five-year, $4.2 million grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The new Great Lakes Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments Center (GLISA) will focus initially on the watersheds of lakes Erie and Huron and three critical topics: agriculture, watershed management, and natural resources-based recreation and tourism.
The University of Michigan and Michigan State University will jointly lead a federally funded effort to help Great Lakes-region residents anticipate and adapt to climate change. The interdisciplinary effort will be funded by a five-year, $4.2 million grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. SNRE Professor Don Scavia is a co-leader of the project.