Great Lakes Wave Height Trends

With the advent of the industrial revolution, greenhouse gases have been emitted into the atmosphere causing the alteration of weather across the globe. These gases have caused the global temperature to warm. This has also caused a change in precipitation, wind speeds, and wave heights. The Great Lakes have many cities located on their shores and millions of people are affected by waves. Effects include shoreline erosion, infrastructure damage, and loss of valuable property and lives. It is imperative to future planning and engineering that the trends of wave height are understood. This study uses linear regression, a well-known and easily understood method, to analyze all the Great Lakes’ wave heights, moving average, moving standard deviation, and 100-year recurrence value. Nineteen wave buoys were selected for analysis, encompassing all the Great Lakes. It was found that some locations have increasing wave height trends while other locations have decreasing trends. Five stations had positive trends for both storm magnitude and standard deviation. Five stations had one positive and one negative trend. Nine stations had decreasing storm average and standard deviations. The 100-year wave height value is also increasing at 11 stations and decreasing at 8 stations. This goes to show that waves are changing, but in different ways for different station locations. Planners can use this information to plan future erosion and infrastructure activities and budgets.