Weather station buoy takes Lake Champlain data worldwide

PLATTSBURGH | The Lake Champlain Research Institute on the SUNY Plattsburgh campus was buoyed by a $700,000 grant used to purchase and install a high-tech weather station that is giving graduate- and undergraduate-students access to real-time data previously out of reach. The Great Lakes Fishery Commission funding of nearly a million dollars has allowed the institute and its director, Dr. Timothy Mihuc, SUNY distinguished service professor in the Center for Earth and Environmental Science, to obtain the weather station that sits on a buoy in Lake Champlain off Cumberland Head to study weather-driven events and how those effect the lake's thermal structure, he said. The high-tech station and lake profiler joins the institute's first unit, placed on the buoy south of Valcour Island. This new unit, installed last week, sends probes far below the lake's surface that can allow researchers on campus and around the world the ability to monitor changes to the temperatures of the water. TRANSFERS DATA The data buoy makes a cell phone call hourly, transfers the data that Mihuc and his crew capture on a computer in the LCRI and then push out live to their GitHub site. "Technology is fun, and this is really a fun, high-tech piece of equipment," he said. "IT on campus has been great in helping us with computer support to handle this data and push it out live." Mihuc said the applications for this technology are great in terms of research, "but the public makes use of the data collected and posted as well." "It's popular with the boating and sailing community. (The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association) makes use of our data on its National Buoy Data Network, where you can click and see (ours) along with all the others around the world." At three-quarters of a million dollars, it's an expensive investment, but Mihuc said they've retrieved significant initial data already, "especially how the lake responds to these storm events," he said. DYNAMIC LAKE CHAMPLAIN "It's a very dynamic lake; it changes a lot. We're having more and more frequent storms, and it's important to understand the lake systems," Mihuc said. "We're going out, doing management checks — this buoy checks waves, wind and the thermal profile," which anglers can use to know where to set their fishing lines. "The sailing and boating community uses these checks." Mihuc said the older buoy, deployed in 2016 by former CEES assistant professor, Dr. Eric Leibensperger, an associate professor at Ithaca College who still helps Mihuc with the project, can't compete with the amount of data available collected from the new unit, which gives them thousands of profiles. The Valcour data buoy continues to provide previously unavailable data on the lake in real time. But it's almost 10 years old, and technology changes rapidly. The new unit isn't without its drawbacks: Maintenance can be a huge operation, Mihuc said. "And it has to be pulled out of the water in winter. If it ices over, it'll destroy our buoy." SUPPORTING RESEARCH Mihuc said the buoys afford SUNY Plattsburgh students myriad opportunities, "supporting masters' level research studies for students in the natural resources and ecology master's program and undergrad students in a variety of ways. The LCRI is always involving students in research," he said. "It's a very busy summer for our students." Students go out on the lake aboard the research vessel R/V Gruendling, a 30-plus-year-old boat in need of drydocking. But thanks to a $750,000 grant from the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission, a new 36-foot vessel is under construction. $50,000 more was awarded to equip the boat, which is set for launch in fall 2026. "The current vessel was already five, six years old when I arrived in summer 1999," Mihuc said. "It's time to retire it. I'm happy to help make that happen." For more information on the Lake Champlain Research Institute, contact Mihuc at 518-564-3039 or email mihuctb@plattsburgh.edu. -Written by Associate Director of Communications Gerianne Downs

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Weather station buoy takes Lake Champlain data worldwide

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