Historical Great Lakes Buoy Data

[hm8]

As part of a research project I worked on at UofM this year, I took a look a data from great lakes buoys over the past 30 years. Specifically, I was looking at temperature and pressure data in the summer months (June, July, and August).

I divided the buoys into two main groups. Group 1 is composed of buoys from Lake Superior, Group two from mainly the northern parts of lakes Huron and Michigan.

I also averaged the data for each month into an overall summer average for each year. I plotted the summer average air temperature and pressure for each group, and got the graphs below.

Group 1:

Group 2:

Apart from the more clear trends of decreasing pressure (stormier weather?) and increasing temperature, I think its also interesting to note the period of cooler temperatures in the 90's (more visible in buoy group 1), which coincides fairly nicely with the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo.

Here is a link to download an excel sheet with yearly data for each individual buoy (including ones not in the groups above), as well as plots from each individual month for each buoy group.

https://www.dropbox....d%20Charts.xlsx

Also, below is a link to download a poster I created for the project with things like an abstract and data gathering methods

https://www.dropbox....ch%20Poster.pdf

Links to buoy data:

http://www.ndbc.noaa...ps/EastGL.shtml

http://www.ndbc.noaa...ps/WestGL.shtml

[Geos]

Very interesting research! Did you present this? Nicely presented on the pdf.

I would think a pressure decrease would say things have been stormier over the GL.

Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991, so the affects would have taken hold the next year more so. For temperatures overall, I'm thinking the air masses that have been moving over the GL over the years are coming in milder? Maybe more air masses coming in more often from a different region of the country?

[hm8]

Thanks. Yeah, I did this as part of an undergraduate research program at UofM, which included a symposium at the end of the year where everyone presented their research.

[Geos]

Thanks. Yeah, I did this as part of an undergraduate research program at UofM, which included a symposium at the end of the year where everyone presented their research.

Ok. I did 3 poster presentations at different symposiums throughout the UW system.

I collected wind and precipitation data the summer of 2010 for a project determining the amount of inorganic Hg that rained out of the atmosphere. I tried to correlate the higher readings to when the wind was carrying the plumes from local power plants over Chiwaukee Nature Reserve just north of the IL/WI border on the lake.