Climatic change and great lakes levels the impact on shipping

1988 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Marchand ◽  
M. Sanderson ◽  
D. Howe ◽  
C. Alpaugh
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 1210
Author(s):  
Charles White ◽  
Andrew Heidinger ◽  
Steven Ackerman ◽  
Peter McIntyre

Inland waters are warming at highly variable rates that often differ from regional air temperature trends. This variable warming is partially attributable to an individual lake’s geographical and morphological characteristics. In very large lakes, significant intralake variability in long-term warming trends has also been observed. In light of this intralake and interlake heterogeneity of lake surface water temperature (LSWT) and LSWT trends, we revisit the 1.1 km Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) record for the Laurentian Great Lakes. In this work, we have assembled a long-term (1986–2016) and high-spatial-resolution (0.018°) daily LSWT dataset using AVHRR record. Subtracting an empirically-determined mean diurnal cycle mitigates the effects of varying observation times. Adjustments in the georegistration of the images are made to reduce the impact of AVHRR navigational errors on the earlier platforms. Both the original daily composites, and a gap-filled product using locally weighted interpolation methods will be made available to support fine-scale physical and environmental research in the region.


2005 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
pp. 85-95
Author(s):  
Pierre Camu

A few months before the opening of the new St. Lawrence Seaway, the author reappraises the effects of the Project on the Port of Montréal. Analysing the conclusions and recommendations of three studies published in 1957 and 1958, the Report of the ToIIs Committee of the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Report of the Royal Commission on Coastal Trade, and the report published by the Faculty of Commerce of McGill University, The Impact of the St. Lawrence Seaway on the Montréal Area, one comes to the conclusion that the Port of Montréal will remain a grain transhipment centre, but will lose a good part of its general cargo trade to Great Lakes ports. The loss of general cargo tonnage is estimated at 650,000 tons. In conclusion, several factors that may contribute to keep Montréal the leading oceanic port on the Seaway are stressed : 1. the imponderables ; 2. the Lachine rapids that are reduced in size by the new canal, but do not disappear; 3. competition between different types of vessels ; and, 4. traffic congestion in the waterway.


2022 ◽  
pp. 748-763
Author(s):  
Ashok K. Rathoure ◽  
Unnati Rajendrakumar Patel

Many studies in recent years have investigated the effects of climate change on the future of biodiversity. In this chapter, the authors first examined the different possible effects of climate change that can operate at individual, population, species, community, ecosystem, notably showing that species can respond to climate challenges by shifting their climatic change. Climate change is one of the most important global environmental challenges that affect all the natural ecosystems of the world. Due to the fragile environment, mountain ecosystems are the most vulnerable to the impact of climate change. Climatic change will affect vegetation, humans, animals, and ecosystem that will impact on biodiversity. Mountains have been recognized as important ecosystems by the Convention on Biological Diversity. Climate change will not only threaten the biodiversity, but also affect the socio-economic condition of the indigenous people of the state. Various activities like habitat loss, deforestation, and exploitation amplify the impact of climate change on biodiversity.


2008 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 239-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. McBean ◽  
H. Motiee

Abstract. In the threshold of the appearance of global warming from theory to reality, extensive research has focused on predicting the impact of potential climate change on water resources using results from Global Circulation Models (GCMs). This research carries this further by statistical analyses of long term meteorological and hydrological data. Seventy years of historical trends in precipitation, temperature, and streamflows in the Great Lakes of North America are developed using long term regression analyses and Mann-Kendall statistics. The results generated by the two statistical procedures are in agreement and demonstrate that many of these variables are experiencing statistically significant increases over a seven-decade period. The trend lines of streamflows in the three rivers of St. Clair, Niagara and St. Lawrence, and precipitation levels over four of the five Great Lakes, show statistically significant increases in flows and precipitation. Further, precipitation rates as predicted using fitted regression lines are compared with scenarios from GCMs and demonstrate similar forecast predictions for Lake Superior. Trend projections from historical data are higher than GCM predictions for Lakes Michigan/Huron. Significant variability in predictions, as developed from alternative GCMs, is noted. Given the general agreement as derived from very different procedures, predictions extrapolated from historical trends and from GCMs, there is evidence that hydrologic changes particularly for the precipitation in the Great Lakes Basin may be demonstrating influences arising from global warming and climate change.


2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (13) ◽  
pp. 4923-4936 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham R. Simpkins ◽  
Shayne McGregor ◽  
Andréa S. Taschetto ◽  
Laura M. Ciasto ◽  
Matthew H. England

The austral spring relationships between sea surface temperature (SST) trends and the Southern Hemisphere (SH) extratropical atmospheric circulation are investigated using an atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM). A suite of simulations are analyzed wherein the AGCM is forced by underlying SST conditions in which recent trends are constrained to individual ocean basins (Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic), allowing the impact of each region to be assessed in isolation. When forced with observed global SST, the model broadly replicates the spatial pattern of extratropical SH geopotential height trends seen in reanalyses. However, when forcing by each ocean basin separately, similar structures arise only when Atlantic SST trends are included. It is further shown that teleconnections from the Atlantic are associated with perturbations to the zonal Walker circulation and the corresponding intensification of the local Hadley cell, the impact of which results in the development of atmospheric Rossby waves. Thus, increased Rossby waves, forced by positive Atlantic SST trends, may have played a role in driving geopotential height trends in the SH extratropics. Furthermore, these atmospheric circulation changes promote warming throughout the Antarctic Peninsula and much of West Antarctica, with a pattern that closely matches recent observational records. This suggests that Atlantic SST trends, via a teleconnection to the SH extratropics, may have contributed to springtime climatic change in the SH extratropics over the past three decades.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gayane Karapetyan ◽  
Veronika Barta

<p>Natural and artificial lakes are able to change the climate of their surroundings. These modifications are collectively known as lake effects and range from microscale to synoptic scale. The presence of the lake can cause negative effect on the local thunderstorm activity in summertime decreasing the convection and precipitation over lakes due to the greater stability created by the lower atmosphere and the colder surfaces of the lake [1, 2]. However, it also can have a positive impact on thundercloud generation when the temperature difference between air in 850 mb height and near earth's surface is more than 13 C causing instability in the atmosphere [3].</p><p> </p><p>The main objective of the present study is to investigate the impact of Lake Fertő (Neusiedler See, located in Hungary and Austria) on local thunderstorm activity by applying statistical analysis on meteorological and lightning data and event studies. Data of the Blitzortung lightning location network, local meteorological data (temperature, precipitation) measured at stations around the lake, water temperature measured at Fertőrákos and temperature measured at 850 mb in Vienna station were used for the analysis. The local thunderstorm activity was investigated during summertime (May - September) in 2015, 2016 and 2017. Lightning distribution maps above and around the lake for the investigated period have been determined based on the Blitzortung data.</p><p> </p><p>According to the lightning distribution maps we can not observe any positive impact of the lake on the lightning activity when water temperature was higher than the air temperature around the lake. Furthermore, we can not conclude that there is a clear negative effect of the lake on the lightning activity based on the lightning distribution maps when the air temperature is higher than the water temperature. Nevertheless, there are some months when it seems a clear border between the lightning activity measured above the lake and at the coast (e. g. in June and July 2015, June 2016). The negative effect also seems to appear in some cases of the investigated local individual thunderstorms, namely the thunderstorm activity is larger above the surrounding surface than directly above the lake. This seems to strengthen the hypothesis that "Deep convection is not often formed in summer above the lakes, and existing storms dissipate significantly when moving above the lakes due to the greater stability created by the lower atmosphere and the colder surfaces of the lake" [1].</p><p> </p><p>[1] Lyons, W. A., Some effects of Lake Michigan upon sqall lines and summertime convention. Proc. 9th Conf. Great Lakes Research, Great Lakes Res. Div. Publ. No. 15, University of Michigan, 259–273, 1966</p><p>[2] Scott, R. W., & Huff, F. A. . Impacts of the Great Lakes on Regional Climate Conditions. Journal of Great Lakes Research, 22(4), 845–863., 1996</p><p>[3] Wilson, J. W. : Effect of Lake Ontario on precipitation. Mon. Wea. Rev. 105, 207–214., 1977</p>


1988 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reid A. Bryson

Research over the past century has shown that the rates and magnitudes of climatic change constitute a continuum. Changes have now been identified in the climatic record that range in duration from interannual through decades and centuries to the multi-millennial time-scale. Examples range from the drought years of the 1930 and 1970 decades to the ponderous comings and goings of the ice-ages. More recently it has become clear that some changes can be quite rapid. In recent decades great progress has been made in identifying the causes of climatic variation.The present understanding of the causes of climatic change emphasizes continental drift (or ‘plate tectonics’) at the million-years' scale, with pulses of plate movement producing significant bursts of volcanic activity that may act on the millennial or century scale. At the multi-millennial scale there is growing agreement that the variations in irradiance of the Earth, resulting from slow changes in the Sun-Earth geometry (the so-called Milankovitch variations), exercise the operative control on the timing of ice-ages and interglacials. At the decadal and interannual scales there is less agreement; but there is at least a body of research which suggests that significant volcanic activity is a contributing factor. There is considerable agreement—but little direct evidence—that anthropogenic causes such as increased carbon dioxide and other Man-made or-enhanced trace gases in the atmosphere, will be important in the coming decades.Cultural responses might be expected to differ across this continuum. To assess the expected response to a climatic variation, one must know at least the shape of the response surface.There is probably a critical threshold combination of climatic change magnitude and duration. Human cultures seem to be adapted to frequently-occurring short ‘aberrations’ from the expected climate. Some evidence indicates, on the other hand, that relatively small changes of climates (of the order of a century in duration) have been associated over the past 8,000 years with cultural changes that proved large enough to lead to different names being assigned in perhaps half of the cultural termini identified. A climate model which includes the effect of volcanic aerosols, suggests that most of the climatic changes associated with these globally synchronous cultural termini are related to peaks of volcanic activity. Some apparently catastrophic events have been recognized in this connection.There remains the problem of assessing, in realistic terms, the impact of large-magnitude climatic variations on modern human societies. Of particular concern is the effect of climatic events associated with very large-scale short-term insertions of aerosols into the atmosphere. It is likely that non-equilibrium models of the atmosphere, with specified sea-surface temperatures, would give realistic results if refined to the degree that they could replicate events of lesser magnitude which have occurred in the past century. At present there appear to be no models in which the formulation of the radiative effect of aerosols or gases gives a good match with observed radiative effects. It seems that much more research, including field experiments, will be needed if science is to supply reliable advice to society on the nature of coming climatic changes.


1980 ◽  
Vol 37 (11) ◽  
pp. 2159-2168 ◽  
Author(s):  
James F. Kitchell ◽  
James E. Breck

A bioenergetics model for growth of lamprey during the parasitic phase was used to estimate food consumption by lampreys and the impact of lamprey feeding on host fishes. Estimates are evaluated by application to several Great Lakes case histories. Temperature and size-dependence of feeding and respiration were sufficient to account for growth dynamics. The model demonstrates that distribution of host fishes, by determining the thermal history of the lamprey, has important effects on lamprey life history and host mortality. Modeled lamprey growth and feeding rates, relative to size of the host, predict a strongly seasonal host mortality rate peaking in autumn. The predicted mortality pattern corresponds with that of independently derived data. Principles of optimal foraging theory applied to lamprey yield a hypothesis that predicts highest wounding and scarring frequencies at intermediate lamprey: host abundance ratios. A second component of the hypothesis predicts seasonal changes in these frequencies as lamprey size increases. Growth rates of lamprey and their host species plus wounding and scarring frequencies are more sensitive indicators of changing abundance ratios and lamprey effects than population changes resulting from predation by lamprey.Key words: sea lamprey, Petromyzon marinus; model, bioenergetics, growth, consumption, fish mortality, Great Lakes


2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 642-658 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Irfan Javaid Attari ◽  
Matloub Hussain ◽  
Attiya Y. Javid

Purpose This paper is a direct extension of the work by Hussain et al. (2012). They have investigated a long-term relationship between climatic change and economic growth in case of Pakistan. Agricultural sector plays an important role in economic field, whereas industrial sector is the main source of carbon dioxide (CO2) emission. Therefore, this study aims to replace economic growth variable with industrial growth in case of Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach Investigation is made on the basis of the environmental Kuznets curve by using the time series data during the period 1971-2009. The per capital carbon dioxide (CO2) emission is used as an environmental indicator and per capita industrial income as the economic indicator. Different econometric tools including augmented Dickey–Fuller, autoregressive distributed lag and Granger-causality test are used to verify this relationship. Findings The empirical findings will help the policy-makers of Pakistan in developing new standards and monitoring networks for reducing CO2 emission. It is essential to extend the current research work at provincial and different sectors levels in order to have clear understanding about the impact of current emission rate. Originality/value This study replaces economic growth variable with industrial growth in case of Pakistan because the industrial sector is the main source of carbon dioxide (CO2) emission. This study is to investigate a long-term relationship between climatic change and industrial growth in case of Pakistan.


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