How’s the algae at Lake Erie?

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/sports/erie-fishing-looks-good-but-watch-out-for-the-alga/nW7Mr/?goback=%2Egmp_3809234%2Egde_3809234_member_227761421

Erie fishing looks good, but watch out for the algae

By Jim Morris

People used to ask me, “How’s the fishing at Lake Erie?”

Not anymore.

Now they ask, “How’s the algae at Lake Erie?

“I have actually heard some people say they think the algae helps attract walleyes,” said Jeff Tyson, Lake Erie program administrator for the Ohio Division of Wildlife. “We get mixed reactions, though. Other people don’t like pulling fish through the algae blooms.”

Tyson says scientists see the algae bloom tied to the weather.

“When we have a wet spring, March through June, and loading from the Maumee River (spreading of nutrients from runoff), we can expect algae bloom,” he said. “In 1911 we had record precipitation and that really brought on the algae bloom, but last year it was very dry and we had very little,” he said.

Unfortunately, all the snow and rain has made for wet conditions this spring.

As far as walleye fishing goes, anglers can expect another good year, because there are plenty of fish available from good hatches in 2007 and 2010. And the record hatch of 2003 is still contributing in a big way.

“We figured last year about 35 percent of the walleyes in the lake came from the 2003 class,” Tyson said.

Those 10-year-old fish are now monsters – 30 to 35 inches in length. That means plenty of folks will be catching big fish, more than big enough to earn a “Fish Ohio” pin.

The ’07 fish are 24 inches or more and the ’10 fish are 15 inches and up, making them legal keepers.

Yellow perch fishing is also expected to be good this year. But as it has been in recent years, the further east you go to fish, the larger and more plentiful the perch.

“The catch rate was up last year over 2011,” Tyson said. “It’s holding pretty steady at about 3.5 fish per person, per hour.

“But we’d like to see some better hatches in the Western Basin, There were actually some good hatches in the Central Basin last year and that’s where we’re seeing more stability.”

Although the walleye and perch fishing are considered very good, perhaps the most success in Lake Erie fish management has come with smallmouth bass.

“The catch rate for smallmouth bass in 2012 was the highest we’ve see in at least a decade,” Tyson observed. “It’s been trending up. We have had some good hatches.”

He said the closed season for keeping bass during May and June that was imposed several years ago seems to have improved the fishery.

Generally, the best bass fishing has been around the reefs and the islands, but now bass are showing up along the shore in the main lake – but they aren’t smallmouth. For years, largemouth bass have been caught in the rivers and around marinas and docks, but now they seem to be branching out.

“The University of Toledo has been conducting a near-shore assessment survey over the past two years. We’re seeing a lot of largemouth bass, so it’s a developing fishery and that’s kind of interesting,” Tyson said.

Quotas set: The Lake Erie quotas for yellow perch and walleye have been set. Ohio’s total allowable catch for walleyes is 1.715 million. Last year an estimated 920,000 were caught in Ohio waters. The perch quota is 4.8 million pounds. About 3.5 million pounds were caught in Ohio in 2012.

Tyson said those numbers indicate there will be no change in bag limits for either species this year. The walleye bag limit is four until May 1, then six until March 1, 2014. Perch limits remain as 30 lakewide.

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How’s the algae at Lake Erie ?

Wrong questions lead to wrong answers.

The right question to ask is -
How are the Diatoms in Lake Erie ?

Icelandic volcano's ash led to more CO2 being absorbed by oceans

http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/news/story.aspx?id=1416&cookieConsent=A

The Icelandic volcano's ash plume that caused huge air travel disruption across Europe in 2010 resulted in the oceans absorbing more carbon dioxide (CO₂) than usual, say scientists.

They found that particles from the ash cloud that fell into the ocean provided microscope plants, called phytoplankton, with a nutrient boost in the form of iron. Phytoplankton are important as they absorb CO₂ from the atmosphere. In fact, while phytoplankton represent just two per cent of all plant matter on Earth, they account for half of all CO₂ absorption from the atmosphere.

'This had never been done, no one has ever made any at-sea in-situ measurements during an eruption,' explains Professor Eric Achterberg, from the National Oceanography Centre Southampton, lead researcher on the study.

In the oceans south of Iceland there isn't usually enough iron for phytoplankton to bloom for more than a few weeks before it runs out. This latest study reveals that the volcanic ash column supplied enough iron that the phytoplankton were able to bloom for longer, and absorb more CO₂ than they would typically have been able to.

'In normal years the iron levels are very low in the Iceland basin as the system runs out of this nutrient during the annual spring bloom. But in 2010 the iron supply was so high that demands were met. But then the phytoplankton stripped the nitrogen out of the surface waters so they became limited by that instead,' says Achterberg.

The research, published in Geophysical Research Letters, found even with the added iron from the volcano and the longer blooming period, the phytoplankton were only able to absorb about 15-20 per cent more CO₂ than in other years before the nitrogen in the water ran out.

Red tide could become the norm

http://www.winknews.com/Local-Florida/2013-02-11/Red-tide-could-become-the-norm#.URr30x137Ss

Red tide could become the norm

Story Created: Feb 11, 2013 at 11:35 PM America/New_York

SANIBEL, FL--If you have been to the beach recently, chances are you've seen or felt the recent effects of Red Tide. Scientists say 2012 was a year with nearly non-stop cases and now wildlife experts and biologists are saying the problem is getting much worse.

This weekend, high concentrations of Red Tide were reported near Lighthouse Beach and last week extreme levels around Sanibel were reported.

A trip to the beach should be relaxing unless it's plagued with red tide.

"Irritation inside my chest, just itchy," said tourist Jane Messmer.

The dead fish, potent smell and respiratory irritation is proving to be a common thing across southwest Florida. Biologist Richard Bartleson blames increasing amounts of nutrients making their way in to the gulf which feeds the red tide blooms.

"In the past it might, the normal red tide might start in November and last a few months," said biologist RichardBartleson.

But recently, Bartleson says we have been affected by Red Tide on and off now for five straight months and each red tide bloom is lasting longer than usual.

With the growing population and infrastructure, more water runoff containing nutrients is washing to the gulf.

"The more nutrients you have, the longer the blooms can last and thats right, more normal now," said Bartleson.

A problem putting a damper on many of the daily activities for the thousands of tourists who flock to our area.

"We rented a boat for 8 hours and we came back after 6 because what we planned to do we couldn't do because of the dead fish," said Messmer.

The wildlife is also dramatically affected. In 2012, the Clinic for Rehabilitation of Wildlife (CROW) in Sanibel says they saw 439 animals like birds and sea turtles who where poisoned by red tide and that's 168 more than 2011.

"For us it is starting to become an overwhelming problem for us to where sometimes I don't have enough money and enough staff," said Dr. Heather Barron with CROW

Animal doctors are also seeing a wider variety of birds and wildlife that are being affected and scientists say its getting harder to find out what we can do prevent more red tide,in part,  because of the lack of funding.

Lake Winnipeg 'wins' Threatened Lake of the Year award

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/Lake-Winnipeg-wins-Threatened-Lake-of-the-Year-award-189678361.html

Lake Winnipeg has made an inauspicious list after being declared "Threatened Lake of the Year, 2013" by the Global Nature Fund.

Not a great surprise, according to environmental activists.

"Scientists have been warning us about Lake Winnipeg’s future as far back as 1969," said Vicki Burns, Outreach Coordinator for the Lake Winnipeg Foundation (LWF). "They warned that we needed to decrease the nutrients that are causing the toxic blue-green algae blooms back then. Yet, despite these warnings the action to clean up the lake has been very slow. However, the embarrassment that goes with a global recognition of such dubious distinction, is actually galvanizing the LWF and our important partners. We are more determined than ever to save our lake."

However, Burns noted that the quality of the lake can be "stymied, and ultimately, reversed." Burns cited Lake Constance, bordered by Switzerland, Austria and Germany, which the LWF said was considered even more polluted than Lake Winnipeg and has now been cleaned up so well that it provides drinking water to surrounding communities.

According to Burns, the LWF is currently leading development of an action plan that will focus on science and is engaging and collaborating with key stakeholders in the Lake Winnipeg situation.

"Perhaps more than we recognize, Lake Winnipeg has a strong global connection because of its home in Canada’s vast prairie region known as the World’s Breadbasket," added Alex Salki, chair of the LWF Science Advisory Council. "In our quest to feed the world, we are nevertheless fueling Lake Winnipeg eutrophication by removing the nutrient buffering capacity of wetlands, altering natural stream courses, and reducing habitat biodiversity. And of course, we are all aware of the urban and municipal impacts on the lake as well.

Udo Gattenjohner, of the Global Nature Fund, said while Lake Winnipeg is one of the largest lakes in the world, it’s "dramatic environmental problems" are less well known. Gattenjohner said "recent changes in Canadian polities seem to be eroding the protection, particularly of vulnerable water ecosystems – and it is disappointing because this does not really fit with our image of Canada."

Kasatochi Volcano - Ocean Fertilization - 2008

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=79525&src=eoa-iotd

Several researchers have proposed that we could “engineer” our environment to offset the rising concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. One proposal is to “fertilize” the ocean to make blooms of phytoplankton,plant-like, microscopic organisms that are the “primary producers” of the seas. Phytoplankton use sunlight and nutrients to grow and then become food for other marine life; along the way, they absorb carbon dioxide. The geoengineers propose that by putting enough iron in the right places—the mineral is often in short supply in the open ocean—phytoplankton will bloom wildly and soak up a lot of CO₂.

Nature is very good at making prodigious blooms of phytoplankton. But as a recent “natural” experiment showed, the absorption of carbon dioxide is not always so prodigious.

On August 7, 2008, a stratovolcano in the Aleutian Islands began erupting just as a storm system was passing overhead. Over several days, the explosive eruption at Kasatochi Volcano sent ash and sulfur dioxide about 11,000 meters (35,000 feet) into the air and thousands of kilometers downwind. That iron-enriched ash spread out across a vast area of the North Pacific Ocean.

“Usually ash from volcanic eruptions is swept in one narrow direction by the wind,” said chemical oceanographer Roberta Hamme of the University of Victoria. “However, the ash from Kasatochi was caught in this forming storm system, which swirled over the ocean, depositing volcanic ash over an unusually large area.”

Downwind from Kasatochi, the concentration of chlorophyll in the ocean increased by 150 percent. Hamme and other scientists saw satellite observations of both the ash plume and of the jump in chlorophyll—the sign of a phytoplankton bloom. Instruments on oceanographic buoys and gliders also captured elements of the event, as did scientists who were cruising through the area on a Fisheries and Oceans Canada ship. Hamme and the team connected the dots and concluded that the eruption led directly to a vast bloom of phytoplankton.

The image at the top of the page shows the concentration of aerosol particles as they were dispersed in the atmosphere southeast of the Aleutian Islands in August 2008. Aerosols are airborne particles such as sea salt, dust, air pollution and, in this case, volcanic ash. The measurements were made by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA’s Aura satellite.

The second map depicts the increase in chlorophyll in the ocean in the month after the eruption at Kasatochi. Chlorophyll is the pigment in plants and phytoplankton that harnesses energy from the Sun for food, and the abundance of chlorophyll (in milligrams per cubic meter) is a proxy for the abundance of plankton. The map does not show total concentrations; instead it shows how much chlorophyll rose above (green) or below (brown) the norm for August in that region. The data were acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s <Aqua satellite.

The data plot (third image) shows the total concentration of chlorophyll within the white inset box marked in the second map, including the significant increase in 2008.

In the aftermath of the eruption and bloom, Hamme and colleagues looked for the carbon impact of the event. Estimating the amount of carbon dioxide in the water before, during, and after the event, they found that the phytoplankton pulled about 0.01 Petagrams (10¹⁵ grams) of carbon out of the atmosphere. For scale, the burning of fossil fuels releases about 6.5 Pg of carbon annually, and about 2 Pg are absorbed naturally by the ocean.

“Despite the huge area of iron addition and the optimal time of year when there was plenty of sunlight, the impact of this August 2008 event was quite small in terms of carbon absorption,” Hamme added. “This tells us that iron fertilization would have to be performed on a truly gigantic scale to have an impact on our climate.”

1. References

2. Alaska Volcano Observatory (n.d.) Kasatochi Introduction. Accessed January 23, 2013.
3. Global Volcanism Program (n.d.) Kasatochi. Accessed January 23, 2013.
4. Hamme, R. C., et al. (2010) Volcanic ash fuels anomalous plankton bloom in subarctic northeast Pacific.
Geophysical Research Letters, 37, L19604.
5. NASA Earth Observatory (2008) Natural Hazards: Aleutian Islands' Kasatochi Volcano Erupts.
6. Oceanus (2007, November 13) Fertilizing the Ocean with Iron. Accessed January 23, 2013.
7. Science Now (2010, October 6) How Volcanoes Feed Plankton. Accessed January 23, 2013.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Jesse Allen, use OMI aerosol data provided by the Aura science team, MODIS chlorophyll anomaly data from the Ocean Color team, and chlorophyll data from NASA Earth Observations (NEO) courtesy of Kevin Ward. Caption by Michael Carlowicz.

What do innovative people actually do?

A very interesting discussion on Linkedin -

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/What-do-innovative-people-actually-32614.S.206163002?view=&srchtype=discussedNews&gid=32614&item=206163002&type=member&trk=eml-anet_dig-b_pd-ttl-cn&ut=1dru64PGtkFlA1

What do innovative people actually do?

Janet Sernack • Great conversation, I have spent the last 2 years researching, deciphering and modelling the intrinsic motivators, mindsets and behaviors behind the unique and globally successful Israeli entrepreneurial and innovative leadership model.
Typically and simply (nutshell version) innovators do:
- Adapt easily and collaborate with others to identify band solve problems,
- Disruptively debate to achieve high level thinking and create inflection points that result in innovative solutions, products and services,
- Improvise and experiment by prototyping, and not giving in to, and learning from failure,
- Keep the pot simmering by embracing and maximizing diversity, deviance, conflict and difference.
Happy to share more via personal conversation.

How Climate Change is Damaging the Great Lakes

http://ecowatch.org/2013/how-climate-change-is-damaging-the-great-lakes/?goback=%2Egde_2414449_member_206000259

How Climate Change is Damaging the Great Lakes

A+A-0

01-18-2013

ThinkProgress

By Matt Kasper

Great Lakes Michigan and Huron set a new record low water level for the month of December, and in the coming weeks they could experience their lowest water levels ever. It’s becoming certain that, like the rest of the country, the Great Lakes are feeling the effects of climate change.

Last year was officially the warmest year on record for the lower-48 states. The hot summer air has been causing the surface water of the Great Lakes to increase in temperature. One might think this causes more precipitation around the lakes, but the warmer winter air is causing a shorter duration of ice cover. In fact, the amount of ice covering the lakes has declined about 71 percent over the past 40 years. Last year, only 5 percent of the lakes froze over—compared to 1979 when ice coverage was as much as 94 percent.

Furthermore, the continuing effect of the historic drought in the Midwest is causing increased levels of evaporation. This combination of climate change side-effects results in low water levels for the Great Lakes.

The impact climate change has on the five lakes—Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario—will have serious implications for aquatic life, as well as high economic costs for communities.

• The Great Lakes stretch from Minnesota to New York. They account for more than 80 percent of North America’s surface freshwater, and provide drinking water to 40 million U.S. and Canadian citizens.
• Many industries in the region that depend on trade through the lakes will face navigation challenges, and will have to reduce the amount of cargo carried.
• Tourism and recreational activities that are vital to coastal communities will surely feel the negative economic effects. Activity associated with recreational fishing alone is estimated to be at least $7 billion annually.
• Infrastructure investments will need to occur, as the necessity for extending docks and dredging increases.
• And the habitats of fish, birds and other mammals will be altered.

The two maps below developed by the Great Lakes Environmental Assessment and Mapping project (GLEAM) illustrate the severity of the environmental impacts on the lakes, as well as the warming temperature of the lakes.

The researchers behind GLEAM note that water surface temperatures between 2000 and 2100 will warm at rates ranging from 0.37-0.93 degrees Celsius per decade in Lake Superior, and 0.20-0.60 degrees Celsius per decade in Lake Eire as a result of climate change. Research conducted by the University of Minnesota-Duluth’s Large Lakes Observatory(LLO) found that summer surface water temperatures on Lake Superior have increased 2.5 degrees Celsius between 1979 and 2006. As climate change continues, fueling more frequent and more extreme droughts, we will continue to see more reductions in the extent and duration of winter ice cover.

Researchers at GLEAM are not alone in this finding. Several different climate models for the Great Lakes region all predict that lake levels will decline over the next century. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) uses two different modeling approaches, researching the net effect of precipitation due to climate change, and the warming lakes and air surrounding the lakes are leading to increased evaporation levels.

The third National Climate Assessment draft, the most comprehensive peer-reviewed analysis of how climate change impacts regions and sectors across the U.S., was released last week. It found that the likelihood of extreme events like intense heat waves, mild winters and lack of ice cover on the lakes will occur with greater frequency. The draft also finds:

• The Great Lakes are warming at rates faster than the world’s oceans. This will also stimulate blooms of harmful algae in the lakes, leading to toxic cyanobacteria.
• Climate change will likely heighten the impact that invasive species have in the Great Lakes.