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Home > About GLERL > Mission and History
Mission Statement and History
What is the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL)?
The NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory is one of 7 Federal research laboratories within the Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR web site) line office of NOAA. GLERL was formed in 1974 to provide a focus for NOAA's environmental and ecosystem research in the Great Lakes and coastal marine environments. Presently GLERL's research resides under NOAA's Ecosystem Goal Team (EGT web site) specifically in the Ecosystem Research Program (ERP Charter [pdf]) . During its history, GLERL has made many important scientific contributions to the understanding and management of the Great Lakes and other coastal ecosystems. GLERL scientists thus play a critical role in academic, state, federal, and international partnerships, and GLERL research provides information and services to support decisions that affect the environment, recreation, public health and safety, and the economy of the Great Lakes and coastal marine environments.
GLERL's Mission Statement
GLERL's mission is to conduct high-quality research and provide scientific leadership on important issues in both Great Lakes and marine coastal environments leading to new knowledge, tools, approaches, awareness and services.
GLERL's Main Science Issue Areas
- Physical Environment
- Water Quantity
- Water Quality
- Human Health
- Fish Recruitment and Productivity
- Invasive Species
Ecosystem Forecasting
Definition: Ecosystem forecasting predicts the effects of biological, chemical, physical, and human-induced changes on ecosystems and their components. These forecasts, both qualitative and quantitative, offer scientifically sound state-of-the-art estimations of likely outcomes.
NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory has a long history of addressing a wide range of environmental issues areas in the Great Lakes and other coastal environments. GLERL is the only NOAA research laboratory that has the breadth of scientific expertise to address complex ecosystem Great Lakes issues. GLERL is committed to understanding the present state of the Great Lakes ecosystem in order to predict impacts of stresses placed on the ecosystem to provide information to decision makers that will aid management and decision making.
All of GLERL's long-range research is targeted toward producing a suite of forecasts and forecasting capabilities of physical and ecological conditions that will advance an ecosystem-based approach to management.
+ Read GLERL Science Strategy [pdf]
GLERL's Science Issue Areas Support All 4 of NOAA's Mission Goals
NOAA's Mission Goals:
- Ecosystem: Protect, restore and manage the use of coastal and ocean resources through ecosystem management approaches
- Climate: Understand climate variability and change to enhance society's ability to plan and respond
- Weather and Water: Serve society's needs for weather and water information
- Commerce & Transportation: Support the Nation's commerce with information for safe and efficient transportation
History
GLERL was officially created within NOAA on April 25, 1974 to provide a focus for federal research on the Great Lakes, America's fourth coast. The original GLERL was formed by merging staff from the Limnology and Computer Divisions of the Lake Survey Center of NOAA's National Ocean Service (NOS web site) with the staff of the International Field Year for the Great Lakes (IFYGL) Office. The laboratory opened in Ann Arbor, Michigan in August, 1974.
By 1980 the laboratory had expanded to include a major research effort on the cycling of sediment particles and associated toxic organics, which were recognized in the Great Lakes Quality Agreement as a major environmental problem of the lakes. GLERL scientists led some of the early work in identifying and evaluating processes affecting the deposition and cycling of contaminants in the lakes and showed that the sediment zone is a major repository for contaminants and also a major source for recycling contaminants to the water column and food web.
GLERL staff is encouraged to develop cooperative research projects with other agencies focused on specific major environmental issues in keeping with NOAA's mission and goals. Our water resources research area was expanded to include the impacts of climate change on the Great Lakes, which has led to GLERL's participation in the national Water Resources Forecasting (WARFS) Program. GLERL's scientific expertise on the movement and cycling of sediment particles, and circulation measurements and modeling, has led to several large joint research programs with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA web site) to develop contaminant mass balance models for selected areas: the Upper Great Lakes connecting channels, Green Bay, and Lake Michigan.
In 1989 the ecosystem dynamics component of GLERL added a small research project on non indigenous species. Research started with the ecosystem impacts of Bythotrephes , the "spiny water flea" which had spread through most of the Great Lakes. However, with the discovery of zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha) in Lake St. Clair, and the passage of the Nonindigenous Aquatic Nuisance Act of 1990, GLERL was tasked with developing a major program on nonindigenous species, focusing on the ecosystem and environmental effects of the zebra mussel.
In 1994 Thunder Bay, Lake Huron was designated as a National Marine Sanctuary, and became administratively housed at GLERL. The first GLERL web site went online in June of this year also. A year later, in 1995, the Muskegon facility (located on Lake Michigan and the Muskegon Lake channel) was officially named the Lake Michigan Field Station.
In 1998 GLERL became involved in the National Ocean Sciences Bowl Midwest Regional Competition for high school students, which continues to be an important annual outreach event. Members of GLERL accompany the winning team to Alpena, MI where the students get to explore shipwrecks in the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary. The students then travel down through Grayling, where they learn about forest habitat, to Muskegon, where they get to go out on one of GLERL’s research vessels.
In 2002 GLERL acquired the Research Vessel Laurentian from the University of Michigan. The 80 ft. vessel sits at its homeport at the Lake Michigan Field Station in Muskegon, MI.
Today, GLERL is actively involved in research on Ecological Prediction, Aquatic Invasive Species, Physical Environment Prediction, and Environmental
Observing Systems. Specific research projects include studies on the zebra
mussel in the Great Lakes, the impacts of climate change on the Great
Lakes and mid-U.S. water resources, the development of coastal environmental
forecast systems, Great Lakes water supplies, water level forecasting
and regulation, the use and dissemination of satellite imagery for environmental
products development, the factors that affect and determine the bioavailability
of toxic organic chemicals, environmental reconstruction (retrospective
analysis) from sediment core records, the ecosystem and water resources
problems of south Florida - the Everglades and Florida Bay, and the seasonal
hypoxia of the coastal Gulf of Mexico.
Last updated: 2007-02-08 mbl