Cyanobacteria (also known as blue-green algae) are on the rise in the U.S. and worldwide, becoming a serious threat to freshwater resources and public health because of their toxins and disruptive effects on ecosystems. Ongoing research funded by the National Center for Coastal Ocean Science is uncovering the secrets of why cyanobacteria are so successful. [...]
With hopes fading fast for the crippled Earth-observing satellite Envisat, researchers are warning that delays to its replacements will leave Europe lacking vital monitoring data for years to come. Launched in 2002, Envisat is the largest environmental satellite ever built and the mainstay of the Earth-observing programme for the European Space Agency (ESA). The 8.2-tonne [...]
Researchers have discovered that during the summer, Lake Erie circulates in an opposite direction than other lakes in the Northern Hemisphere. Instead of currents rotating in a counter-clockwise (“cyclonic”) direction driven by the rotation of the earth, central Lake Erie has a clockwise current driven by summer winds. This causes a bowl-shaped, or inverted, thermocline that is [...]
On April 8, 2012, the European Space Agency lost contact with its main environmental monitoring satellite, a key data source for developmental harmful algal bloom forecasts in Lake Erie, the Chesapeake Bay, and Florida’s east coast. The satellite–Envisat 1–houses the only instrument able to discriminate cyanobacteria from other algae, as well as find intense blooms [...]
Lake Erie is the shallowest and smallest of the Great Lakes by volume and is heavily influenced by agricultural and urban runoff. It is subject to periodic outbreaks of harmful algal blooms (HABs) and hypoxia. These problems were identified as the highest priority of the International Joint Commission (IJC) as it drafts guidelines and targets [...]
Representatives from the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science met with the Federal-State Areas of Concern Coordinating Committee (FEDSTACC), a group of regional stakeholders from across the Great Lakes basin, to discuss the common goals of removing EPA-designated Beneficial Use Impairments (BUI) from designated sites and monitoring the recovery of EPA-designated Areas of Concern (AOCs), areas defined by [...]
EPA Region 5 in Chicago recently hosted the second meeting on “effects-based” monitoring in the Great Lakes and scientists from NCCOS’ Mussel Watch Program attended. Scientists have long recognized that chemical contaminant monitoring in environmental matrices is expensive and limited in its ability to identify ecological risk. Molecular, biochemical, histological and morphological changes in organisms are useful to risk [...]
Research conducted by scientists at the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science’s (NCCOS) will be published as a chapter in, Quagga and Zebra Mussels: Biology, Impacts, and Control, Second Edition, edited by Thomas Nalepa (NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory). The book will include over 30 chapters dealing with ecological consequences of dreissenid mussels in [...]