Lake Michigan in motion : responses of an inland sea to weather, earth-spin, and human activities
"Lake Michigan and the other four Great Lakes of North America collectively constitute the largest body of fresh water in the world, measured by surface area. The eminent limnologist Clifford H. Mortimer has spent much of his life studying these lakes, the dynamics of their waters, and the impact of humans upon them. Lake Michigan in Motion, offering an introduction to the science, public policy, and history of Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes system, is certain to become a classic reference book."
Print Book, English, ©2004
University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, ©2004
xix, 310 pages : illustrations, maps ; 29 cm
9780299178307, 9780299178345, 0299178307, 029917834X
52518848
THREE CENTURIES OF PHYSICAL INQUIRY: Voyageurs and missionaries (1610-1700)
Trade and wars (1700-1820)
The Cass Expedition {1820)
Canals, ships, wrecks, charts (1825 to the present)
Beginnings of government investigations of fisheries: early academic initiatives (1870-1900)
U.S. Department of the Interior, Great Lakes fishery investigations (1925-1940)
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Anti-Lamprey Campaign (1940 and continuing)
Expansion of research at the Universities of Michigan and Toronto; initiation of the Great Lakes Research Conferences (1953 and continuing)
Government agencies, and commissions concerned with lake research and management
Expansion of Great Lakes research during the 1960s and beyond
Establishment of NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL, 1974)
THE LAKE BASIN: EXCAVATED BY ICE, SHAPED BY SHORE EROSION AND SEDIMENT TRANSPORT: Birth of the basin
Chronology and regional variation of crustal rebound
Form and dimensions of today's basin
Shore types and their erosion
Shifting sediments: (I) on the beaches
Shifting sediments: (II) migration offshore; episodic re-suspension by storm waves
Particles suspended in offshore water columns
The burial ground for recent sediments located, not at maximum depth, but along the eastern slope of the southern basin
Water transparency. WATER LEVELS AND FLOWS: Long-term changes in the water level
Michigan-Huron water levels before 1860, corrected for postglacial land rebound
The St. Clair River outflow from Michigan-Huron
The diversions
Water exchanges between the Michigan and Huron basins
How long, on average, is a "conservative" pollutant retained in Lake Michigan?
Lake water as a resource
THE SEASONAL CYCLES OF HEATING/COOLING AND LAYERING/MIXING: Winter cooling
Spring warm-up and development of nearshore thermal fronts
Wind-induced perturbations of spring thermal fronts and summer thermoclines
Summer 1942 correlation between: (I) P.E. Church's temperature transects; (II) lake water intake temperatures; and (III) wind
Annual heat budgets and related meteorological variables
Autumnal cooling
The influence of human activities on the lake's thermal regime, now and in the future
The lake as a possible renewable energy source
PARADE OF LAKE CURRENTS: Current-wind comparisons at differing distances from shore and in different seasons
Turbulent flow and formation of the upper mixed layer
Consequences of earth-spin for currents as seen by earthbound observers
Inertial current responses to impulsive and unsteady wind
Upper layer response to relatively steady wind (Ekman drift)
Geostrophically balanced currents
Vertical transports
Whole-basin and partial-basin circulation patterns, including contributions from long waves. CATEGORIES AND MODELS OF WAVES: What is a wave?
Radiation of energy by wave groups moving out from areas of wave generation
The climate of short surface waves on the lake
Short progressive internal waves and stability oscillations
Rotation-affected long waves in model channels and basins of uniform depth
Nomenclature of rotation-affected waves
Wave reflection at shore barriers - models of standing waves and seiches in rectangular channels and basins
Combination of two oppositely propagating Kelvin waves
Sverdrup waves combined to form Poincare waves in rotating rectangular model channels
Sverdrup and Poincare wave theory
Vorticity waves (topographic Rossby waves) in basins of non-uniform depth
Forced oscillation and resonance
Nonlinear internal wave responses to strong forcing
LONG SURFACE WAVES: SEICHES, TIDES, AND STORM SURGES: History of observations of low-frequency fluctuations in lake surface level (seiches)
Spectral analysis of water level records - the method
Spectral analysis of water level records - results for longitudinal seiches
The semidiurnal lunar tide
The crossbasin seiche
Forced oscillation and resonances in Green Bay
The Michigan-Huron co-oscillation
Storm surges
Whole-basin structure of main-basin and Green Bay seiche modes. PROBING THE UNDERWATER WAVE FIELD: Signals from internal waves arriving at municipal lake water intakes
The 1963 campaign: a calm start
The 1963 campaign continued: a short burst of wind starts near-inertial oscillation
The 1963 campaign continued: dramatic perturbations of thermocline topography during and after storms
An internal response of stratified Green Bay to near-periodic wind forcing
Complications facing the interpreter of fixed-point current and temperature records
The 1963 findings and avenues for future research
MODELS IN ACTION: Storm surges
Surface wave predictions
The amphidromic surface seiche modes
The double resonance in Green Bay
Poincare wave models: propogation restriction in rectangular channels
Further model combinations compared with poststorm lake responses
Adjustment after downwelling
The way ahead
HYDRODYNAMIC CONSTRAINTS ON BIOLOGICAL PRODUCTION AND HUMAN AFFAIRS: The water/sediment column: a stage for biological play
Localized light and nutrient control of spring production at nearshore thermal fronts
Control exerted by oxygen fluxes
The nature and consequences of the lake's interactions with humankind
Public health
Introduction of alien species
The history of loading to the lake of phosphorus, toxic contaminants, and chloride
Annual coupled cycles of sediment/water exchange of phosphorus, water column dynamics, and biological production
Aquatic science and public policy - the lake in court, a cause celebre
The contribution of scientists to the lake's future environmental well-being