Water of Today, Solutions for Tomorrow: An Introduction to the Large Lakes Observatory
The Large Lakes Observatory. Photo by Elise Lockener
The Large Lakes Observatory contributes to freshwater research around the world – and its home is right here in Duluth.
About 5 minutes away from campus, just off of East 5th Street, the large, brick building, owned by the University of Minnesota Duluth, is nestled among the trees of a quiet neighborhood corner. Inside, scientific minds – faculty and students – work on a variety of research projects meant to aid present and future understanding of large freshwater lakes.
Working With People, For People
“Most of the liquid surface freshwater is in the large lakes of the world,” said Dr. Catherine O’Reilly, Director of the LLO and Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at UMD. Specifically, the Laurentian Great Lakes (Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario) hold 90% of the surface freshwater in the United States, serving 28 million people with drinking water.
The Great Lakes of the U.S. aren’t just behemoths of drinkable water. They provide 1.3 million jobs and $82 billion of wages annually on the States’ side, and are also home to a multi-billion dollar fishery.
Scientists at the LLO aid in research on large lakes around the world too. They share and collaborate on projects over long distances and time zones, or travel to the large lakes of which they work on.
O’Reilly has visited Lake Tanganyika in East Africa many times. Her work there has been used to aid in sustainable fishery management on the lake.
Map of all the large lakes around the world that LLO scientists have contributed work at. Red dots represent places they’ve been, yellow represents places they’ve contributed to remotely. Photo by Elise Lockner
“Understanding how these lakes work, what keeps the water so clean is really important for maintaining a sustainable environment and sustainable economy,” O’Reilly said.
The Blue Heron
The best way to begin to understand the Lakes is to get up close and personal with them. In order to do that, scientists board the Blue Heron, the research vessel of the LLO.
Once an Atlantic fishing trawler, the Blue Heron was bought by the university 28 years ago and has contributed to research across all the Great Lakes, said Dr. Doug Ricketts, the Marine Superintendent of the vessel.
“When you get on the bigger lakes, like Lake Superior here or some of the other lakes of the world,” Ricketts explained, “you have to use oceanographic techniques.”
Researchers use these “large water techniques.” These include research methods and tools that have been adapted to the more difficult conditions of working on oceans and large lakes.
Buoys, Moorings and their Data
Dr. Jay Austin, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at UMD, works with moorings and meteorological buoys on Lake Superior, both of which fall into the realm of “large water techniques.”
Meteorological tool placed on top of buoys to gather data. Photo by Elise Lockner
“Data from those [the buoys] are relayed in real time to our lab and disseminated to various federal agencies,” Austin said. The National Weather Service’s marine forecast, for example, depends on the buoys’ data.
Austin focuses largely on extended observations. Moorings are key in these observations, as they can be left on the Lakes for many months or years.
Some issues, like climate change, require many years of data gathering to get the full picture of what is going on; what conditions used to be, what conditions currently exist, and what can be expected to come. Sometimes, even more than 20 years of data is required for that picture, Austin expressed.
Microorganisms, Macro Impact
The microbiology of Lake Superior is recognized by the LLO for its part in understanding bigger pictures, much like the meteorological data of the buoys. Dr. Cody Sheik, Assistant Professor of the Biology Department at UMD, studies the roles of microorganisms and their roles in the environments of large lakes, as well as how they change over time.
“They have so much great capacity for processing and doing basic chemistry that the rest of the ecosystem relies on,” Sheik stated.
For billions of years, these organisms have been playing out their roles in ecosystems. To Sheik, understanding the key concepts of how they work – historically and in present changing lake climates – is a step toward uncovering what might happen in food chains of the future.
Working for Tomorrow Today
The work at the LLO points to a future where change is possible. The discipline and hard work of today impacts and aids in solutions of the future.
“In order to solve a problem you have to understand it first. That’s what these guys are doing here,” Ricketts concluded.