Impacts of Climate Change on Hydrodynamics and Thermal Regime of Green Bay, Lake Michigan
Publication: World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2024
ABSTRACT
Climate change can affect the patterns of circulation and thermal regime of lakes and coastal areas in the Great Lakes region. Future planning for infrastructure and resource allocation requires a scientifically based knowledge of hydrodynamics of the lakes under a changing climate. Green Bay has a long history of excessive algal production and hypoxia, and evidence shows that it has been getting worse in recent decades due to longer summer stratification and warmer climate. This research aims to investigate the effect of climate change on hydrodynamic behavior of Green Bay, which is crucial in future water quality and biogeochemical studies. Downscaled regional climate change data for mid-century conditions from Global Climate Models (GCM) was used as input to a hydrodynamic model. Model predictions of the circulation and thermal regime in the bay were analyzed under six climate change scenarios, namely the 90%, 50%, and 10% percentile rank increments in summer temperature and two emissions scenarios. The results show important changes in lake hydrodynamic regimes, in particular temperature patterns in the southern Green Bay, including the EPA, the area of concern (AOC). The outcome of this research provides a procedure that can be used by researchers and managers to investigate climate change effects in other coastal areas in the Great Lakes region.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2024
Pages: 143 - 153
History
Published online: May 16, 2024
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Bays
- Bodies of water (by type)
- Climate change
- Climates
- Coastal engineering
- Coasts, oceans, ports, and waterways engineering
- Engineering mechanics
- Environmental engineering
- Fluid dynamics
- Fluid mechanics
- Hydrodynamics
- Hydrologic engineering
- Hydrologic properties
- Hydrology
- Lakes
- Thermal effects
- Thermodynamics
- Water and water resources
- Water circulation
- Water management
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