The East Coast has experienced an impressive number of hurricanes in the past few years, with Hurricane Sandy inflicting more than $50 billion in damages in the New York/New Jersey area. Many residents are still recovering from disruptions to their homes, and from the flooding of tunnels and subways.
But, hurricanes affect nature too. Nine lakes that are part of a global monitoring network – the Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network known as GLEON – were being monitored for environmental conditions well before Hurricane Irene arrived in fall 2011. A team of researchers, led by Cary Institute’s Senior Scientist Kathie Weathers, documented changes in the mixing and productivity of these lakes that lasted for months.
The lakes that received the most rainfall, relative to their volume, had the greatest effects. And lakes that received a lot of organic materials from the surrounding watersheds via inflowing waters, augmented by hurricane runoff, became net sources of turbid waters and carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
“Boy, if you think about lakes for example as a big bathtub that have different temperatures from top to bottom – warm on the top and cold on the bottom, hurricanes and tropical storms with their high winds and rain mix that bathtub up all into one temperature, and that affects the biology in the lakes,” says Weathers.
The effect of hurricanes on lakes is subtle compared to newsreel pictures of the destruction of buildings and homes. But the effects on lakes will take time to heal, and need to be managed carefully to avoid disruption of the quality of our water supply while we wait for nature to recover.
Web Links
Ecosystem Effects of a Tropical Cyclone on a Network of Lakes in Northeastern North America
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es302063v
Photo, taken on October 28, 2012, courtesy of NASA via Flickr.