University of Michigan, Eastern Michigan University projects to examine Great Lakes and climate change
Teams of local researchers have been awarded almost $6 million in federal grants to study and to educate the public about the Great Lakes and how they relate to climate change.
The National Science Foundation awarded Eastern Michigan University professor Sandra Rutherford a $993,908 grant to help raise awareness on climate change related to the Great Lakes via educational partnerships.
University of Michigan researchers, along with numerous collaborators, got $5 million from NSF to explore how climate change and the human responses to it could impact Great Lakes’ water quality. They’ll focus on extreme weather events sparked by climate change.
The Great Lakes account for 84 percent of North America’s surface fresh water.
The U-M project will entail the study of land use, climate, precipitation and water governance patterns. The team will use the data to predict how water quality will be impacted in the future.
Researchers already suspect that climate change brings about negative impacts - like pollution - following extreme weather events, which are expected to occur more frequently. With more extreme weather come pulses of water depositing more pesticides, sediments and nutrients into the lakes.
Juliana Keeping is a health and environment reporter for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at julianakeeping@annarbor.com or 734-623-2528. Follow Juliana Keeping on Twitter
Comments
Thea
Thu, Oct 7, 2010 : 3:18 p.m.
The Great Lakes region is getting wetter. We are getting greater amounts of precipitation, which the IPCC attributes to climate change. Is there climate change? Well, look at the data. Is it anthropogenic? The data supports that too. It's free,and you can google it. The severity of the change is what is often debated. You can also google the climate change action plan that was recently composed for the state of Michigan. Also free and available to the public. Either way, what I believe she is referring to is the increase in heavy rainfalls in the region which has lead to an increase in the occurrence of combined operating system overflows. The result of the overflows are raw sewage flowing into the rivers and lakes. Sewage systems in the northeast are often COS. It's an old design and it needs to be updated, but there isn't any money to do so. Furthermore, the emphasis of these grants are not actually climate change. There are five specific topics which they focus, but the general emphasis is to clean up the Lakes at a faster pace than has been previously happening. Obviously, the creation of jobs and an increase in economic developments are boons as well.
Carl Duncan
Wed, Sep 22, 2010 : 1:25 p.m.
The glaciers have already retreated from this area. Yes it has warmed up a bit. The "Ice Age" is finished! Now it is time to get over this fact and stop trying to attribute the end of the "Ice Age" to industry and carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide, by the way, is necessary for life on earth as we know it. This information is for free--google it! No government grant is necessary.
xmo
Tue, Sep 21, 2010 : 3:12 p.m.
"Researchers already suspect that climate change brings about negative impacts" Is this science, First; is there climate change? Second; if, there is climate change then what happens? Starting off with an unproven position is politics!