Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level : Great Lakes

Mains level : Not Much

lake

Scientists are building a sensor network to detect the trends in the water chemistry of Lake Huron, one of the five Great Lakes of North America.

What is the Acidification of water bodies?

Acidification of oceans or freshwater bodies takes place when excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere gets rapidly absorbed into them.
Scientists initially believed this might be a good thing, as it leaves less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
But in the past decade or so, it has been established that absorption of carbon dioxide leads to a lowering of the pH, which makes the water bodies more acidic.

What are Great Lakes?

The Great Lakes are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River.
There are five lakes, which are Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario and are in general on or near the Canada–US border.
Hydrologically, lakes Michigan and Huron are a single body joined at the Straits of Mackinac.
By itself, Lake Huron is the world’s third largest freshwater lake, after Lake Superior and Lake Victoria.
The Great Lakes Waterway enables modern travel and shipping by water among the lakes.

The Great Lakes contain a fifth of the world’s total freshwater, and is a crucial source of irrigation and transportation.
They also serve as the habitat for more than 3,500 species of plants and animals.

Scientists are developing a system that would be capable of measuring the carbon dioxide and pH levels of the Great Lakes over several years.
It is known that the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide has caused the world’s oceans to turn more acidic.
Recently, it has been observed that by 2100, even the Great Lakes — Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario — might approach acidity at around the same rate as the oceans.
Researchers hope the data from the Lake Huron project would add to scientific information on the subject.

The Great Lakes are believed to have been born some 20,000 years ago, when the Earth started to warm and water from melting glaciers filled the basins on its surface.
However, this rich ecosphere is under threat as the five lakes would witness a pH decline of 0.29-0.49 pH units — meaning they would become more acidic — by 2100.
This may lead to a decrease in native biodiversity, create physiological challenges for organisms, and permanently alter the structure of the ecosystem, scientists say.
It would also severely impact the hundreds of wooden shipwrecks that are believed to be resting at the bottom of these lakes.