NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory

The latest news and information about NOAA research in and around the Great Lakes

Tag Archives: Lake Huron


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Lessons from Lake Huron: A look back at NOAA GLERL’s 2022 fieldwork for the Cooperative Science and Monitoring Initiative

Every summer, NOAA GLERL scientists travel far and wide across the Great Lakes region to study the biological, chemical, and physical properties of these amazing lakes. A portion of this fieldwork contributes to a larger project called the Cooperative Science and Monitoring Initiative – or CSMI – which helps us take a deeper dive into studying a different Great Lake each year. Instituted under the 2012 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, CSMI is a multi-agency, international effort to coordinate science and monitoring activities in one of the five Great Lakes each year to generate data and information for environmental management agencies.

MODIS satellite image of Lake Huron on May 18, 2021. Credit: NOAA Great Lakes CoastWatch Node.

Each Great Lake gets a “CSMI year” once every five years, and 2022 was Lake Huron’s turn to shine. Sitting right at the center of the Great Lakes region, Lake Huron is shared by the state of Michigan and the Canadian province of Ontario. It’s the second largest of the Great Lakes and ranks as the fourth largest lake in the world by surface area. Lake Huron provides economically and culturally important services, including a productive fishery, a source of clean drinking water, and natural beauty that supports a significant tourism industry. It’s also home to Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, the first ever NOAA National Marine Sanctuary to be established in the Great Lakes.

GLERL’s fieldwork for this year’s Lake Huron CSMI efforts focused on benthic and spatial surveys in Thunder Bay and Saginaw Bay. Here’s a look back at some of the highlights!

GLERL scientists Ashley Elgin and Rachel Orzechowski rinse down sediments collected by a Ponar grab.

NOAA GLERL has been conducting benthic (lake bottom) research in the Great Lakes since 1980, during which time we have built an unparalleled record of the arrival and expansion of invasive zebra and quagga mussels. CSMI provides the perfect opportunity to expand on this knowledge. Surveying the lake bottom allows us to track the population dynamics of these mussels, follow their impacts on native species, and also monitor for any new invasive benthic species. 
GLERL scientist Paul Glyshaw collects Ponar samples onboard the Fisheries and Oceans Canada/Canadian Coast Guard vessel Limnos for mussel length-weight analysis.

In June, July, and August of this year, GLERL conducted surveys that will allow us to update the status of invasive dreissenid mussels and other benthos of Lake Huron. As an exciting bonus, our benthic surveys in Saginaw Bay and Thunder Bay even received dive support from Thunder Bay NMS to supplement the samples collected with Ponar grabs.

Thunder Bay NMS divers Stephanie Gandulla and John Bright support GLERL’s benthic survey on board the R/V 5503.
The large metal claw used for a Ponar grab is no match for a mussel-covered rock like this, which is why we need NOAA’s Thunder Bay NMS Divers to support the benthic survey.

In the truly collaborative fashion that CSMI is known for, GLERL scientists maximized time on these cruises by collecting samples for several federal and university collaborators in addition to conducting our mussel survey.  For example, mussels and sediments went to the U.S. Geological Survey for mercury analysis, and researchers from the University of Michigan will be looking for mussel environmental DNA in water samples.

This sediment sample from Saginaw Bay has many benthic inverts present, including dreissenid mussels, chironomids, water mites, amphipods, and a snail. 
Paul Glyshaw collects and filters Lake Huron water onboard the Fisheries and Oceans Canada/Canadian Coast Guard vessel Limnos to measure carbon content. This helps us address potential impacts of climate change on the lake, including acidification, changes to production, and altered biogeochemical processes.

Plus, GLERL also teamed up with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), and the Canadian Coast Guard in a whole lake-benthic survey, during which GLERL assessed mussel body condition, mussel reproduction, inorganic carbon measures, and collected water for eDNA across the lake. In true CSMI spirit, DFO stepped up and supported the benthic survey when the EPA R/V Lake Guardian became unavailable. 

Fisheries and Oceans Canada/Canadian Coast Guard vessel Limnos pulls into Port Huron for the Lake Huron Benthic survey.

In addition to surveying what’s happening on the lake floor, GLERL also conducted an intensive spatial survey through CSMI to study Lake Huron’s food web in the area between Thunder Bay and Saginaw Bay. With a special focus on studying the interactions between larval fish and plankton, one of the key instruments used was GLERL’s Plankton Survey System (PSS). This high-tech piece of equipment is a towed multi-sensor platform capable of measuring turbidity, chlorophyll a, photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), conductivity, temperature, and zooplankton spatial distributions.

GLERL scientists use the PSS on Lake Michigan in the mid 2000s.

The plots below show a nearshore to offshore view of Lake Huron’s biological data measured by the PSS, like water temperature, dissolved oxygen, and chlorophyll, and plankton distribution. Check out more PSS plots from this spatial survey here.

While the PSS instrument was collecting data below the waves, lots of mayflies were catching a ride on this research cruise!

Now that the fieldwork is complete, the next step for GLERL’s CSMI work is to process our samples and analyze our data to continue building our knowledge of Lake Huron. Stay tuned in 2023, when CSMI heads east to study Lake Ontario!

For more CSMI information, data, and findings, visit greatlakescsmi.org. Plus, check out this related CSMI project in which GLERL and CIGLR developed an Experimental Biophysical Modeling Forecast System for Lakes Michigan and Huron.


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Looking back: The ups and downs of Great Lakes ice cover in 2021

Ice formations cover a pier on the Lake Michigan shoreline in Holland, MI. February 27, 2021. Credit: Clarice Farina.

It’s no secret that the Great Lakes had a wild ride in terms of ice cover this past winter. From a slow start that led to near-record low ice cover in January, to the sudden widespread freeze just a few weeks later, here’s a look back at how ice cover on the lakes has fluctuated during the 2020-2021 ice season.

As we highlighted in our last blog post on historic ice data, January 2021 had the second-lowest overall Great Lakes ice cover on record since 1973 (with the very lowest being January 2002). For all five individual lakes, January 2021 was in the top five lowest ice-cover Januarys since 1973.

This graph shows average Great Lakes ice cover for the month of January every year from 1973 to 2021, organized by lowest ice cover (far left) to highest ice cover (far right). Credit: NOAA GLERL.

Starting out at 10.65% on February 1st, ice cover rose dramatically over the next three weeks with the region’s extreme cold weather. Growing quickly and steadily, total Great Lakes ice cover finally topped out at 45.84% on February 19th. But with air temperatures warming back up shortly afterwards, this spike was short-lived. Within a week it was back down to around 20% and continued to taper off, falling below 1% on April 3rd and reaching 0.1% on April 20.

This graph shows Great Lakes ice cover in 2021 (black line) compared to the historical average ice cover from 1973-2020 (red line). Credit: NOAA GLERL.

This Winter vs. The Long-Term Average

While all five lakes were far below their January average, each one did something a little different during February, when compared to its 1973-2020 average. The following graphs show this winter’s ice cover (black line) vs. the 1973-2020 average (red line) for each lake.⁣

Lake Erie ice cover jumped dramatically up to 81% in the second week of February, well above its average seasonal peak of around 65%. It stayed above 75% for about two weeks until falling back down below its average at the beginning of March.


Lake Michigan ice cover increased steadily throughout February, with its highest percentage being 33% on February 18th — only briefly staying above its average for that time period. It dropped off quickly the following week, then decreased gradually throughout March.

Lake Superior spent about a week in mid-February above its average ice cover for those days, peaking at about 51% on February 19th. Similar to Lake Michigan, it only stayed above its average for a short interval before rapidly falling back down under 20%.

Lake Ontario ice cover took a while to ramp up, staying below 10% until mid-February. It reached maximum ice cover on February 18th, topping out at about 21% – slightly higher than its average for that day.


Lake Huron was the only lake that did not reach above-average ice cover for the entire winter. Its peak ice cover was 48% on February 20th, which was about the same as its average for that time of year.

Melting into Spring

Throughout March, ice cover on all five lakes continued to decrease steadily, with the exception of a spike in ice cover around the second week of the month likely due to fluctuations in air temperature. For Lakes Erie and Ontario, this short-lived jump was enough to get them back up near their average early March ice cover for a few days. 

As for the timing of each lake’s peak 2021 ice cover compared with the average, Lakes Erie, Michigan, Huron, and Ontario all peaked later than their average, while Lake Superior is the only one that peaked earlier than its average.

Ice covers the Lake Huron shoreline in Oscoda, MI on February 15, 2021. Credit: G. Farina, NOAA GLERL.

This winter’s maximum seasonal ice cover of 45.8% is just 7.5% less than the long-term average of 53.3%. While it’s below the average, it’s still more than double the 2020 seasonal maximum of 19.5% ice cover, but is just over half the 2019 seasonal maximum of 80.9%. With so much year-to-year variability, forecasting ice cover each year can be incredibly difficult. NOAA GLERL’s experimental ice forecast, updated in mid-February, predicted Great Lakes ice cover in 2021 to peak at 38% – not too far off from what it really was. NOAA GLERL continues to analyze both current and historical data to refine the ice forecast model, working to actively improve our experimental Great Lakes ice forecast each year.

This graph shows annual maximum ice cover on the Great Lakes each year from 1973 to 2021. Credit: NOAA GLERL.

For more on NOAA GLERL’s Great Lakes ice cover research and forecasting, visit our ice homepage here: https://go.usa.gov/xsRnM⁣

⁣Plus, access these graphs plus more Great Lakes CoastWatch graphs & data here: https://go.usa.gov/xsRnt⁣

Flat, jagged pieces of ice float in Lake Huron near Oscoda, MI on February 15, 2021. Credit: G. Farina, NOAA GLERL.


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Sinkhole Science: Groundwater in the Great Lakes

If you followed our fieldwork last summer, you probably remember hearing about our research on the fascinating sinkholes and microbial communities that lie at the bottom of northern Lake Huron off the coast of Alpena, MI. Now you can experience this research as a short film!

NOAA GLERL has partnered with Great Lakes Outreach Media to create a short film entitled Sinkhole Science: Groundwater in the Great Lakes. It was recently featured on Detroit Public Television’s Great Lakes Now program as well as the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary’s International Film Festival. 

In the film, you’ll learn how NOAA GLERL’s Observation Systems and Advanced Technology (OSAT) branch studies how these sinkholes impact the water levels and ecosystems of the Great Lakes. GLERL’s OSAT Program Leader Steve Ruberg explains the high-tech gadgets involved in this research, including a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), a tilt-based current sensor, and temperature strings to determine vertical movement of groundwater entering the lakes through the sinkholes.

Hit “play” to dive into the exciting world of GLERL’s sinkhole science!

Researchers from NOAA GLERL’s Observation Systems and Advanced Technology team set out on the R/V Storm to study sinkholes on the floor of northern Lake Huron off the coast of Alpena, MI. Photo: Great Lakes Outreach Media
Researchers on NOAA GLERL’s R/V Storm deploy a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to observe sinkholes at the bottom of Lake Huron off the coast of Alpena, MI. Photo: Great Lakes Outreach Media
NOAA GLERL’s OSAT Program Lead Steve Ruberg and Instrument Specialist Steven Constant observe a sinkhole via live video feed from the ROV. Photo: Great Lakes Outreach Media
NOAA GLERL Marine Engineer Kyle Beadle controls the ROV in order to observe sinkholes from the R/V Storm. Photo: Great Lakes Outreach Media
NOAA GLERL Instrument Specialist Steven Constant and Vessel Captain Travis Smith monitor the ROV as it dives beneath the surface to observe a sinkhole. Photo: Great Lakes Outreach Media


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Millions of Microbes: The Unexpected Inhabitants of Lake Huron’s Underwater Sinkholes

When most people think of sinkholes, a massive cavity in the ground opening up and swallowing a car is what usually comes to mind. But when scientists at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) hear “sinkholes,” their minds jump to an unusual place — the bottom of a Great Lake.

Aerial view of research boat on green water
Researchers on GLERL’s R/V Storm study sinkholes in northern Lake Huron off the coast of Alpena, Michigan. (Credit: David J Ruck/Great Lakes Outreach Media)

Thousands of years ago, off the coast of Alpena, Michigan, patches of ground beneath Lake Huron collapsed to form a series of underwater sinkholes — some measuring hundreds of feet across and up to 60 feet deep. You may have read this NOAA.gov article about how these sinkholes are contributing water to Lake Huron, but did you know they also support a huge kingdom of microorganisms?

Microbes might be tiny, but they’re one of the biggest research topics in the Great Lakes. They thrive near the sinkholes because the groundwater seeping in has the perfect chemistry for their survival: low oxygen levels and lots of chloride and sulfate, which come from the dissolved limestone underlying the lake. These factors make the sinkholes inhospitable for fish and other wildlife normally found in the Great Lakes, which means these microbes have a much easier time surviving there than other creatures. With perfect living conditions and little competition, they’re so abundant that they form purple, green, and white microbial mats that cover the lake floor like a colorful carpet.

Floor of Lake Huron covered by purple and white microbial mats with bubbles in them.
Purple microbial mats in the Middle Island Sinkhole in Lake Huron, June 2019. Small hills and “fingers” like this one in the mats are caused by gases like methane and hydrogen sulfide bubbling up beneath them. (Credit: Phil Hartmeyer, NOAA Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary)

Scientists at GLERL are collaborating with partners from the University of Michigan and Grand Valley State University to see just what these microscopic lake dwellers can teach us. This video by Great Lakes Outreach Media highlights how they can even give us a deeper insight into the history of Earth itself.

Associate Professor Greg Dick from the University of Michigan discusses cyanobacteria’s important role in Earth science. This clip is from Great Lakes Outreach Media’s upcoming documentary, “The Erie Situation.”

Some sinkholes are so deep that sunlight can’t reach them, but that doesn’t stop some microbes from calling them home. They’re able to live their entire lives in complete darkness, because they get their energy from the added minerals in the water rather than from sunlight — a process called chemosynthesis. But whether they need sunlight or not, several of the microbial species present have proven to be full of surprises.

“In the near-shore systems, the cyanobacteria we found have DNA signatures that come closest to comparing to the cyanobacteria found at the bottom of a lake in Antarctica. So that’s a strange coincidence,” said Steve Ruberg, the scientist in charge of sinkhole research at GLERL. “Some of the other bacteria we’ve found in the deeper systems have only been found off the coast of Africa.”

Fish sitting on a rock, which is covered by purple and white microbes
A burbot resting on rocks covered in purple and white microbial mats inside the Middle Island sinkhole in Lake Huron. (Credit: Phil Hartmeyer, NOAA Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary)

The particular sinkholes we’re studying are located within NOAA’s Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, an area of Lake Huron that’s federally protected for the purpose of preserving nearly 200 shipwrecks. In fact, the only reason we know about these sinkholes is because they were discovered by accident only 18 years ago, on a research cruise documenting the shipwrecks.

Close up of rocks covered in purple, white and green microbes on the bottom of Lake Huron, with a diver in the background.
A diver observes the purple, white and green microbes covering rocks in Lake Huron’s Middle Island Sinkhole (Credit: Phil Hartmeyer, NOAA Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary)

So why did this microbial paradise come into existence in the first place? The story goes back much further than the sinkholes’ discovery in 2001. About 400 million years ago, before the Great Lakes even existed, a layer of limestone bedrock formed beneath what is now Lake Huron. Then around 10,000 years ago, underground caves were created when a chemical reaction between the limestone and acidic groundwater dissolved away holes in the bedrock. All that was left were weakly supported “ceilings” that eventually collapsed into the sinkholes we — and the microbes — know and love today.

Close up of rocks covered in purple, white and green microbes on the floor of Lake Huron
Purple cyanobacteria and white chemosynthetic mats on the floor of Lake Huron with Lowell Instruments current meter. (Credit: Phil Hartmeyer, NOAA Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary)

Since Lakes Michigan and Erie have the same limestone bedrock as Lake Huron, GLERL scientists think these lakes could be home to more of these fascinating underwater features. So while the excitement of this fieldwork has died down for the year, our research on Great Lakes sinkholes and their tiny inhabitants is far from over.


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NOAA GLERL collaborating with partners to monitor the Lake Huron ecosystem

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The NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) is participating in an international, multi-agency effort to study invasive species, water quality, fisheries, and climate change in Lake Huron this field season—pursuing key knowledge gaps in the ecosystem. The Coordinated Science and Monitoring Initiative (CSMI) coordinates across U.S. and Canadian agencies to conduct intensive sampling in one Great Lake per year, on a five-year cycle. The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which is administered by the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is funding this research.

“While GLERL has had a long-term research program focused on Lake Michigan, we are using this initiative to advance long-term research on Lake Huron,” said GLERL Director Deborah Lee. “Invasive species, warming temperatures, and changes in nutrient loading are putting as much stress on Lake Huron as on Lake Michigan. We want to better understand the Lake Huron ecosystem and develop modeling tools to predict how the lake is changing.”

Henry Vanderploeg, Ph.D., chief of GLERL’s Ecosystem Dynamics research branch and lead researcher for GLERL’s efforts in the pelagic (open water) portion of the initiative comments, “GLERL plays a critical role in the CSMI, addressing key science questions. GLERL’s high frequency temporal and spatial sampling will help determine nutrient and energy flows from tributaries, nearshore to offshore. This type of data is critical to effectively manage Lake Huron for water quality and fish production.” Frequent spatial surveys are key to understanding food web connections throughout the seasons.

Researchers from GLERL  will expand upon their recent work in Lake Michigan (CSMI 2015) and past work in Huron (2012) to determine fine-scale food-web structure and function from phytoplankton to fishes along a nutrient-rich transect (from inner Saginaw Bay out to the 65-m deep Bay City Basin) and along a nutrient-poor transect (from inner Thunder Bay out to the Thunder Bay basin) during May, July, and September. GLERL will collect additional samples of fish larvae and zooplankton along both transects in June to help estimate larvae growth, diet, density, and mortality and to identify fish recruitment bottlenecks.

“GLERL was instrumental in establishing the long-term monitoring efforts that provide the foundation for current CSMI food-web studies,” said Ashley Elgin, Ph.D., research ecologist in the Ecosystem Dynamics research branch. Elgin serves as the NOAA representative on the CSMI Task Team, part of the Great Lakes Water Quality Act Annex 10, alongside partners from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), EPA, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Environment and Climate Change Canada, and the Ontario Ministries of Natural Resources and the Environment and Climate Change. This year, Elgin is conducting critical mussel growth field experiments in Lake Huron, expanding upon work she developed in Lake Michigan.  She will be addressing the following questions: (1) How does quagga mussel growth differ between regions with different nutrient inputs?; and (2) How do growth rates compare between Lakes Michigan and Huron? Elgin will also coordinate a whole-lake benthic survey, which will update the status of dreissenid mussels and other benthic-dwelling organisms in Lake Huron.  

GLERL’s key research partner, the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research (CIGLR), will deploy a Slocum glider for a total of sixteen weeks to collect autonomous measurements of temperature, chlorophyll, colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM), and photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) between outer Saginaw Bay and open waters of the main basin.  Deployment times and coverage will be coordinated with other glider deployments by the EPA Office of Research and Development (ORD) and/or USGS Great Lakes Science Center, spatial research cruises, and periods of expected higher nutrient loads (i.e., following runoff events).  

CSMI research cruises began in late April and will continue through September. Researchers are using an impressive fleet of research vessels, including EPA’s 180-foot R/V Lake Guardian, GLERL’s 80-foot R/V Laurentian and 50-foot R/V Storm, and two large USGS research vessels, the R/V Articus and R/V Sterling. Sampling missions will also be conducted aboard Environment Canada’s Limnos across Lake Huron. The Laurentian is fitted out with a variety of advanced sensors and sampling gear, making it especially suitable for examining fine-scale spatial structure.

Scientists from the USGS Great Lakes Science Center, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, and the University of Michigan are also participating in the Lake Huron CSMI.