- [Zachary Childress] The Chesapeake Bay
is a large body of water on the middle eastern shore
of the United States.
The 4479 square miles of the watershed
feeds into the Atlantic Ocean.
Even though it is one large body of water,
the composition is different depending on where you reside.
Imagine looking out your window
and seeing the bay flooding the streets,
destroying roads,
and residing on your doorstep.
68.08 inches,
this is the largest amount of rainfall
Calvert County has ever experienced.
The rain destroyed roads,
farms and beaches.
During the summer of 2018,
North Beach was flooded because of the excessive rain.
Many roads were closed such as the busy Route 4.
Much of the rain ran off into the central body of water
called the Chesapeake Bay.
- My name is Jeremy Testa.
I am and Assistant Professor
at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory
and I'm an Estuarine Systems Ecologist.
I think one of the things that I've done
that falls in the realm of discovery
is that using a combination of models
and past observations,
have been able to document how there's feedbacks
that occur in these estuarine systems
where pressure that we put on the system
and pressure that the climate puts on the system
can kind of put estuaries like Chesapeake Bay
in the states where they may be resistant
to kind of getting back to the place
where they used to be before they had all this pressure
coming from human populations.
- [Zachary Childress] Thank you Dr. Testa.
- My name is Laura Harris. I'm an Associate Professor
here at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory
that's part of the University of Maryland
Center for Environmental Science.
So the research I do here,
I'm an Ecologist,
I'm actually trained as an Oceanographer though,
and my focus is on estuarine and coastal ecology
and I'm really excited to be doing that here at CBL.
One of the things that I neglected to tell you all earlier,
is that the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory
is the oldest public laboratory
on the East Coast of the United States
and it was established here specifically to do work
and research that's in service of the State of Maryland.
And for me in particular,
having an opportunity to apply my research
to questions that are useful for society
is really important to finding a way to do research
and to advance my career.
I finished a project in the Potomac Estuary,
which is part of the Chesapeake Bay.
The Chesapeake Bay has kind of the main stem of the bay
that a lot of us are familiar with and then there are all
these tributaries that come into the main stem
of the Chesapeake Bay.
And the Potomac,
the tidal Potomac,
begins way up by Washington, D.C.
and then comes out by St. Mary's County.
We saw really significant impacts of climate
in the Potomac related to cloud cover and precipitation
and that's affected how phytoplankton respond.
So phytoplankton need light to be able to grow
and with cloud cover we're seeing actual patterns
related to that and the light availability
the phytoplankton had.
So that has actually complicated some of
our expected responses
of the system to reductions of nutrients.
So that's been just one anecdote
of some of the things we've seen
in terms of how climate has interacted to effect
the estuary system.
- [Zachary Childress] The effect of weather
on the Chesapeake Bay is extensive and imperative.
Forms of precipitation have different effects
depending on the type
and the amount of said type.
The effect is also based upon the season.
During the winter rain falls as snow
but during the summer,
precipitation comes down as rain.
The climate of the Chesapeake Bay area is special.
The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary
in the United States,
Therefore the area surrounding has a special climate
different from the rest of the United States.
The area is of great importance to researchers
and the average citizen alike.
There is always new tests being ran,
studies being conducted and discoveries being made.
The bay is important and will not disappear at all
in the coming years.
Therefore,
we should try to preserve it for generations to come.