PhD Comprehensive Exam | Leonard Korreshi, Decoding Lake Superior Winter Dynamics through High-Frequency Decadal Data

Tuesday, February 17, 2026 11:00 am - 12:00 pm EST (GMT -05:00)

Location

MC 5479

Candidate

Leonard Korreshi | Applied Mathematics, University of Waterloo

Title

Decoding Lake Superior Winter Dynamics through High-Frequency Decadal Data

Abstract

Winter dynamics in very large lakes such as Lake Superior have long been neglected due to challenges in data acquisition, lack of interest, and perceived ecological unimportance. 15 years of hourly-recorded moored thermistor chain and ADCP data collected by the Large Lakes Observatory at University of Minnesota-Duluth provide a wealth of data on the stages of the lake winter: fall and spring overturns, the development, steady, and weakening of inverse stratification. EOFs are used to characterize thermal profiles in winter as it develops within a year and variation between years, while wavelet coherence is used to analyze which atmospheric and solar effects dominate the temperature profile over the progression of the season. Future work entails a focus detecting internal wave phenomena and how they develop and interact with inverse stratification.