Winter is a quiet time for Great Lakes research, at least out on the water. Research vessels remain secured to their docks; most monitoring equipment is ashore.

But last winter, a basketball-sized buoy off Muskegon, Michigan, broke free from its mooring. Set up to track temperature and wave height, it remained out on the lake and collected data scientists have chased for years: real-time measurements of what happens in the open water far from shore.

It’s some of the first data that exists on how ice and waves collide during the most treacherous season on the Great Lakes.

“It just aligned perfectly with the kind of work we were trying to do,” said Steve Ruberg, a scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab.

The timing was espec

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