Sarah Kaplan et al.: Hidden Beneath the Surface →

Washington Post:

“This summer, researchers will determine whether Crawford Lake should be named the official starting point for this geologic chapter, with pollution-laden sediments from the 1950s marking the transition from the dependable environment of the past to the uncertain new reality humans have created.

In just seven decades, the scientists say, humans have brought about greater changes than they did in more than seven millennia. Never in Earth’s history has the world changed this much, this fast. Never has a single species had the capacity to wreak so much damage — or the chance to prevent so much harm.”

Water Blogged: Science's Role in Society→

UW-Madison: Center for Limnology

“Yes, science can tell us about the current state of our lakes and explain how they got that way and offer suggestions for how we head in a different direction. But that’s where science stops. It rarely gets the final say. It’s up to society to take it from there. Policymakers, resource managers, business leaders and (perhaps the biggest agent of change) concerned citizens, are the actors that then get involved.

When it comes to informed decision making, science provides the info. Society makes the decision.”

Curt Stager: Walden Pond's Mud→

Nautius:

two

“I see no whirligigs here this early in the year, but they are easy to spot on a lake such as Walden when the water is still and they can gather in close, swirling clusters. They overwinter on the bottom and emerge in spring to breed, producing new generations that grow to fingernail length within a few weeks. Each beetle uses flattened legs to paddle quickly through the thin surface film, guided by compound eyes that are each divided, with one-half aimed above the water line and one-half below. Most fish leave whirligigs alone because they leak bitter chemicals when handled, and I have seen newly stocked brook trout, brazen and ignorant from life in the hatchery, snatch whirligigs from below and then spit them back out again like slippery watermelon seeds. Whirligigs often gather in groups that help to discourage predators by pooling more watchful eyes in one place, and the whirling dances within the clusters are not as random as they seem. The individuals on the perimeter are generally searching for fallen gnats, emerging midges, or anything else edible, and they emit ripples like radar to home in on struggling prey. In adult swarms, those closer to the center are more likely to be cruising for mates, using their ripples to communicate with one another and avoid collisions.

Much more has been said and written about Thoreau’s philosopher-poet side than his naturalist side, but as a scientist I am more interested in the latter. The journals that he kept from 1837 to 1861 were so full of natural history observations that they might have become a major scientific work if he had not died of a lung ailment at age 44. He probably thought so, too. Two months before his death in 1862 he wrote a letter to a friend, saying, “if I were to live, I should have much to report on Natural History generally.”

During the winter of 1846, Thoreau drilled more than a hundred holes through the ice of Walden Pond and lowered a weighted line to produce what may be the first map of the floor of an American lake, thereby identifying Walden’s deepest point in the western basin near his cove. In August 1860, he also sent a thermometer down in a stoppered bottle to measure the layered structure of the water column, a first formal analysis of the thermal stratification of the lake. He was amazed at the temperature difference between the upper and lower layers, and he speculated on what it might mean for the resident fish. “What various temperatures, then, the fishes of this pond can enjoy,” he wrote. “They can in a few minutes sink to winter or rise to summer. How much this varied temperature must have to do with the distribution of the fishes in it.””

A great article about the stories that the mud of a lake tells a scientist.

Scott K. Johnson: Lake Science Using Remote Sensors→

Ars Technica:

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

“The largest streams that flow into Lake George are now being monitored year-round by sampling stations. Water is pulled into a heated enclosure (ice isn’t helpful) where it is analyzed by a data-logging device with probes for things like temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, dissolved organic matter, and algae content. Other instruments measure the water level and flow velocity of the stream. The data is periodically uploaded over a cellular Internet connection and entered into the project database. And at the same time, a carousel of sample bottles is automatically filled and periodically retrieved for additional tests in the analytical chemistry labs back at the field station.

That same kind of data-logger is also going to be active out in the lake itself, operating from a set of anchored, floating platforms. The floats raise and lower the data-loggers, allowing them to sample a vertical profile of the lake. That’s enormously useful, because the lake stratifies into a warmer surface layer and a cooler deep portion (as most lakes do). The first two floats hit the lake last summer, but five will go out this spring after the ice melts.

A number of current profilers will be placed at the bottom of the lake as well. These devices bounce acoustic waves off particles drifting by, using the slight Doppler shift of the returning waves to calculate velocities at various heights above the device. For now, they will simply store data to be downloaded when they are retrieved, but they may run cables in the future to allow near real-time access.”

Very cool. Data and models will provide useful information for lake management. 

Waters of Wisconsin–and Beyond [pdf]→

Robert G. Lange, reporting for Wisconsin People & Ideas:

“Limnology, the study of inland waters, is an academic discipline of great interest to the citizens of Wisconsin. University of Wisconsin–Madison limnologists have been studying the waters of Wisconsin since 1895 with the goal of finding solutions to the vexing and myriad challenges our waters continually face. Examining the causal relationships involved in nutrient pollution and lake food webs, studying the impact of dams (and their removal) on rivers, monitoring the health of the Great Lakes, and evaluating the impact of climate change on our waters are all in a day’s work for the scientists at the university’s Center for Limnology.”

Great story on the history of the Center for Limnology and the outstanding scientists that have contributed so much to the understanding of lake ecosystems.