Comparing Cyanobacterial Bloom Phenology in Green Bay and Lake Winnebago with western Lake Erie and Saginaw Bay

Cyanobacteria blooms are increasingly monitored around the world, owing to their potential to cause economic, environmental, and human health risks. One approach to monitor and model cyanobacterial biomass is to use satellite imagery to obtain long-term data sets. This presentation uses an existing algorithm developed for MERIS for cyanobacterial biomass validated with cyanobacterial biovolume estimates in Green Bay. The resulting satellite data set was used to determine the phenology of the cyanobacterial biomass and blooms in Green Bay and adjoining Lake Winnebago from 2002-2011. The relative size and timing of cyanobacteria blooms in Green Bay will be investigated with those in Lake Winnebago. Climatological data on several atmospheric and water variables obtained from the NASA Giovanni dataset was used to separate the upper 50% of bloom years and lower 50% of bloom years in Green Bay. The Giovanni dataset was then used to compare blooms from two other cyanobacterial bloom hotspots in the Great Lakes: western Lake Erie and Saginaw Bay. These data showed that separation was possible using as few as three variables from ancillary datasets.