Update (4/25/2024) MiniMLO is deployed for the 2024 season 和 delivering live data to the 当前形势下 page!
Welcome to the 马斯基根湖浮标 website! From this site, you have at your fingertips 当前形势下 和 历史数据 from the Muskegon Lake buoy going back to 2011. The primary purpose of the buoy system is to help underst和 和 manage this valuable water resource in the Muskegon area. 然而, data is openly accessible for everyone no matter what your interest:boating, 钓鱼, 风冲浪, 桨登机, developing a lesson plan, working on a student project, 做湖泊研究, or you just want to know the weather conditions in the area.
The buoy system is typically deployed on the lake from April to November, 和 some 传感器 may be in the lake year round. Water 传感器 measure over 13 parameters including temperature, 氧气, 营养物质, 光, pH, 导电率, 藻色素, 细菌色素, 和 current speed 和 direction. Air 传感器 measure 8 parameters including temperature, wind, humidity, 和 precipitation. When the buoy system is deployed, data is shared through live data display, 和 web 和 regional observing networks for all to use.
Observatory data is available for researchers, community organizations, teachers, 和 students to learn about 和 assess the lake ecosystem. Research areas for this intensive data set are extensive 和 include:
- Monitoring water quality.
- Monitoring food web structure.
- Quantifying the significance of episodic storm events to the lake.
- Tracking algal blooms including harmful algal blooms.
- Influence of changing regional climate to water 和 carbon balance of the lake.
- Examination of the relationship of river discharge to in-lake fish recruitment success.
- Tracking water circulation patterns 和 sediments movements.
We encourage teachers at all grade levels to use the current 和 historical data in active learning projects related to learning of STEM, particularly learning objectives dealing with local water ecosystems, 微生物, 化学, 光合作用, 水文, 等.
项目团队
GVSU's Annis Water Resources Institute established the buoy-based observatory in Muskegon Lake in 2010. The project is managed by the Bidd和a Lab under the direction of 波比·比丹达博士.D. (principal investigator). Funding was initially provided from a grant from the US EPA Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, 和 is currently operated with support from NOAA-Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, University of Michigan-Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research, Community Foundation for Muskegon County, Consumers Energy Foundation, Edison Innovation Foundation美国国家航空航天局 Michigan Space Grant Consortium.
Muskegon Lake Observatory "Symphony" data
Muskegon Lake Observatory buoy data can be plotted as if it were notes on a musician's score. Each year comprises a new measure, with differences between depths for each parameter creating a harmonic chord of sorts. Through over a decade of data collection, song of Muskegon Lake has begun to emerge, singing a triumphant tune of gradual restoration.
"When ecologists can read numbers like musician's hear notes,n perhaps we will hear symphony where we previously only sensed cacophony."
~Victor Smetacek, 1986 Ophilia
Tango of Temperature 和 Dissolved Oxygen in Muskegon Lake
2017 Summer REU Undergraduate Tom Claffey created this video, visually illustrating how the water column of Muskegon Lake changes from spring to fall throughout the water column from 2011 to 2017. In the spring the water column is thermally stratified (same temperature top to bottom) which allows the whole lake to mix, making dissolved 氧气, which fish need to breathe, also the same top to bottom. In the summer, upper waters warm while the bottom waters stay cold. This thermal stratification isolates the bottom waters from regular mixing 和 resupply of dissolved 氧气, which allows organisms like bacteria to use up much of the dissolved 氧气 in the bottom waters, creating a condition known as "hypoxia". 在秋天, 当温度下降时, upper waters of the lake are more easily mixed with the bottom waters, replenishing dissolved 氧气 to the whole water column.
