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MODELLING PHYTOPLANKTON IN LAKE MICHIGAN USING A HIGH RESULUTION CARBON-BASED FRAMEWORK
Citation:
Pauer, J. J., W. L. Richardson, K. W. Taunt, AND W. Melendez. MODELLING PHYTOPLANKTON IN LAKE MICHIGAN USING A HIGH RESULUTION CARBON-BASED FRAMEWORK. Presented at American Society for Limnology and Oceanography, Alburquerque, NM, February 2001.
Description:
The Lake Michigan Mass Balance Project was initiated by the U.S. EPA Great Lakes National Program Office to determine strategies for managing toxic chemicals in the lake basin. The hydrophobicity of most of these chemicals necessitates a solid understanding of autochthonous production to adequately describe fate and transport of contaminants in Lake Michigan. A eutrophication model is in development to describe phytoplankton dynamics in the lake using a high spatial resolution framework. This will enable us to predict phytoplankton concentration gradients between the near shore and off shore and at specific locations in the lake such as river confluences. The development of the framework, including the formulation of kinetics equations, will be mentioned here briefly. We will elaborate on the tedious task of estimating the many model coefficients, accomplished by transforming project and historical field and lab data. We have recently entered the calibration phase, and our model results appear to correlate well with the field data. We will present calibration results and discuss strategies for completing the project and challenges ahead.