. . . on Lake Ontario

8

A few years ago, New York Sea Grant(NYSG) fisheries specialist Dave MacNeillturned his stakeholders on to a newapproach to recreational fishing. Hesuggested that they plan their expeditionsaccording to seasonal water temperaturechanges. “Fish have distinct temperaturepreferences,” MacNeill explains. “In thespring, when the thermal structure of thelake is reconfiguring itself from its setupduring the winter season, they are attractedto a migrating thermal feature. This feature,called the thermal bar, is literally a verticalwall of 37-degree water that serves as acorral, keeping fish such as rainbow troutand steelhead on the warmer, shorelineside of the bar.”

So how, you may ask, can anglers andrecreational boaters pattern their coastalpractices after such technologically-dependant observations? By using informa-tion offered through CoastWatch, a NationalOceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)program comprised of eight regional nodesthat supports environmental science anddecision making by obtaining, developingand delivering environmental data andproducts for near real-time monitoring ofU.S. coastal waters.

Sea Grant is one of over 40active providers of informationoffered through NOAA’sCoastWatch program, whichwas extended to includeLake Ontario and the otherGreat Lakes in 1990.

Photo by Pat Peterson

Coast

Above: George Leshkevich,NOAA’s Great Lakes CoastWatchManager

Below: NYSG Great Lakesfisheries specialist DaveMacNeill points out the featuresof the newly redesigned websitefor the Great Lakes CoastWatchnode, located in Ann Arbor,Michigan

Photos by Barbara A. Branca

Initially formed by NOAA as a means ofbetter anticipating and monitoringcoastal environmental events such asNorth Carolina’s late 1987 offshore redtide bloom, CoastWatch, which can beaccessed on the World Wide Web at<sgiot2.wwb.noaa.gov/COASTWATCH>,has expanded to other U.S. coastalregions, including the Great Lakes.

CoastWatch’s Great Lakes regional node,which was founded at NOAA’s Great LakesEnvironmental Research Laboratory(GLERL) in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1990,receives a daily suite of over two dozensatellite images from the Command andData Acquisition Station on Wallops Island,Virginia. This collection of images, whichincludes updates on lake surfacetemperatures and cloud cover, is thenmade available to local users via theInternet, at <coastwatch.glerl.noaa. gov>,or over dial-in telephone lines. Accordingto George A. Leshkevich, a NOAA/GLERLphysical scientist and manager of theGreat Lakes CoastWatch program, “Thisdata is being used in a variety of ways,including monitoring such things as algalblooms, plumes, ice cover, wave height,currents and water intake temperaturesat fish hatcheries.”

The first Great Lakes CoastWatch usersite was established nine years ago atthe Center for Great Lakes Studies atthe University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee.Since then, regional application hasgrown to include over 40 activeproviders from federal, state and localgovernment agencies as well as academicinstitutions and the public sector.

Pultneyville•

East Bay•Pultneyville•

W. Nine Mile•

Oswego•

East Bay•

W. Nine Mile•

Oswego•

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WatchIn 1994, Michigan Sea Grant (MSG)formed a cooperative project with NOAA’sGLERL to test and evaluate the feasibilityof digitally processing the surface tem-perature imagery available through theregional CoastWatch program into contourmaps, a form that would prove to be usefuland accessible to the fishing community.

Employing a process that includes using aGeographic Informational System (seeside bar), a newly hired MSG computerprogrammer began posting Lake Michigansurface water temperature and cloud maskmaps daily on the program’s web site,<www.coastwatch.msu.edu>. Two yearslater, these efforts were expanded toencompass the other Great Lakes.

Through publishing a series of articlesin his quarterly newsletter, New York’sGreat Lakes Angler, and by presentingthe idea to sportfishing organizations,MacNeill says, “I was able to describethe Lake Michigan CoastWatch projectto my stakeholders, educate them onits benefits and question them as totheir level of their interest in developing

such a thermal mapping system for LakeOntario.” Supplementary to being the mainfinancial supporter for the undertaking,NYSG provided input on the design of theregional port maps for the lake, whichwere based according to the relative sport-fishering importance of its various locales.

MacNeill is also an advocate for the GreatLakes Forecasting System data— real-timesurface water temperatures, water levels,integrated water currents and forecasts ofvertical water temperature profiles on awhole-lake scale— available for Lake Ontarioonline at <superior.eng.ohio-state.edu>.

While both Leshkevich and MSG’s Coast-Watch Extension Associate Mike Klepingersay efforts are being made to improve theon-line presentation of data, MacNeill iscertain that his stakeholders are alreadyusing the information. “Based on the numberof letters, phone calls and hits on the websites, clearly this project has improved anglerefficiency and allowed many to bettertarget species of recreational interest.”

—Paul C. Focazio

Don’t Guess—Use GISA geographic informationsystem (GIS) is a computer-based tool for mapping andanalysis that transformsstatistics into an interactivevisualization of an area’spopulation, land use,vegetation or geologicalchanges. GIS displays manylayers of information moreefficiently than paper maps,helping a wide range ofusers explain the past andplan the future.

NYSG coastal processesspecialist Jay Tanski has de-veloped GIS tools specific toLong Island’s geographyand population. With a rise insea level being predicted,officials need to know howserious the threat may beto coastal communities.Tanski has prepared GISmaps to show the extent ofcoastal flooding due to sealevel rise and coastal stormsurges under different pre-diction scenarios. Three suchmaps were featured inNewsday’s “Long Island,Our Future” series.

Supported by NYSG andthe Hudson River NationalEstuarine ResearchReserve, Fellow Daisy Tangdeveloped a GIS land usedatabase for the SparkhillCreek watershed of theHudson Valley. Accordingto NYSG specialist NordicaHolochuck, Tang usedhundreds of digitized aerialphotographs to documenthow development causedthe loss of wetlands overthe last 50 years.

Using Sea Grant’s CoastWatch maps to get a“line” on fish. These two website maps of a popularfishing area from Sodus to Mexico Bayshow one day’s changing conditions. Linesconnect points of equal temperature andshow movement of the thermal bar, a“wall” of cool water fish find attractive.Checking the maps can help fishers planmore successful fishing trips.