Review the 'Great Lakes Science Strategy for the Next Decade' report

[DaniJonesOcean]

Issue Description:

An integral part of understanding the context of our GreatLakes-TempSensors project involves gaining a deeper knowledge of the wider ecological, economic, and scientific considerations of the Great Lakes. To this end, please review this important document that outlines strategic scientific initiatives for the Great Lakes over the next ten years.

Reading Assignment:

• International Joint Commission - Great Lakes Science Advisory Board: "Great Lakes Science Strategy for the Next Decade – Summary Report" (November 2022)

Task:

• Read the report carefully with a focus on understanding the outlined science strategy, identifying key science gaps, understanding the region's socioeconomic interdependencies, and recognizing the overall science needs for a sustainable management plan.
• Pay close attention to sections that discuss the challenges, priorities, and the proposed road map. This is critical as it could inform the conceptual framework for our project.

Suggestions for Experimentation:

• Consider how the priorities and gaps identified in the report could influence our project's direction.
• Reflect on how our work with neural processes could align with or contribute to the broader Great Lakes scientific efforts described.

Deliverable:

• Prepare a short summary that synthesizes the main takeaways from the report and how they may relate to our project. Even just a few comments on this issue would be fine.
• Propose any new ideas for research or methodologies that could enhance our project's outcomes based on insights from the report.

After you've completed the reading, we will discuss your findings and any innovative ideas that emerge. Your insights will help shape our understanding and approach to the important work we are doing.

Please document any questions or key observations you have while reading, and we will address these in our next team meeting.

Resources:

• Great Lakes Science Strategy Summary Report (PDF Link)

I hope that you enjoy reading it! I'm certainly still learning a lot about the Great Lakes myself, having only recently come to the field via oceanography.

[eredding02]

@DaniJonesOcean The Great Lakes Science Strategy For The Next Decade Summary Report’s purpose is to create a framework for moving forward in scientific research to better understand the Great Lakes in order to ensure the health and prosperity of people, as well as economic vitality. I was surprised to see the ethos of the Great Lakes being a resource that needs to be maintained for benefits, rather than an environmental conservation effort.

The report lists gaps in knowledge, including physical processes, lake and groundwater chemistry, food webs and fisheries, watershed dynamics, and multidisciplinary issues. The IJC lists strategies to close these strategies as basic process research, monitoring and long time series measurements, enhanced models and forecasting systems, human capital, and research infrastructure. The project we are working on now directly ties into the strategy of monitoring—we are trying to the optimal sample sites to gain as much information as possible. The report mentions a serious lack of winter data so I would expect DeepSensor to recognize it as a site that would benefit from more information.

[DaniJonesOcean]

@eredding02 Great summary. I totally agree that we should expect DeepSensor to flag up the wintertime as a period over which we need more data. I think that could help us frame some potential research questions, such as:

• If we only had one wintertime buoy, where should it be placed to best capture overall variability in the Great Lakes?
• If we only had one wintertime buoy, where should it be placed to best capture variability in Western Lake Erie specifically?

Here I'm mentioning Western Lake Erie because that's a focus of the SOAR program that I mentioned yesterday, which is focused on long-term environmental monitoring for that region.