Farallon Institute Newsletter - Summer 2024

Around The Office — Earth Day 2024

On April 20th, Farallon Institute scientists hosted a booth at the Earth Day Festival in Santa Rosa, CA. The family-friendly and zero-waste annual event had over 50 exhibitors and was well attended by Sonoma County locals. At the Farallon Institute booth, we reminded visitors that over 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by ocean, and we highlighted some of our research themes including seabird ecology, upwelling dynamics, and food web science. In the image, you can see Dr. Hoover introducing a young visitor to the “Seabird Wheel of Fortune”, while Dr. García-Reyes chats about marine science with two other festival attendees. 

State of the Ocean — California

We’re officially in upwelling season here in the California Current Ecosystem with upwelling events starting as early as late April this year. Recent events in mid and late May have kept the nearshore ocean waters colder than average. The upwelled water has provided thermal relief from the lasting effects of the current El Niño, which has affected much of the world’s oceans. This El Niño is continuing to weaken, with a 75% chance we’re back to a neutral state by the end of June and a 75% chance we actually enter La Niña conditions again this fall. The most recent La Niña we faced lasted for three years and had varying effects along the West Coast (a severe drought for two of those years and record-setting precipitation for the third year). It’s very challenging for climate scientists to predict the exact effects of this impending La Niña, so we will wait and see how things shape up as it gets closer!

Though the global ocean temperature has remained much above average since March 2023, these effects have been relatively mitigated in California and along the West Coast of the United States thanks in part to the upwelling of cold water. There have been recent news stories about the massive populations of sea lions in San Francisco Bay (see the following article “Monitoring ecological indicators” for more information); this is likely caused by the warmer waters in Southern California causing the population to move further north in search of food earlier in the year. Though the water is normally warm, recent upwelling events in the Southern California Bight area led to much colder than average water in that region—bring a thick wetsuit if you plan on surfing (Figure below)!

Map of California Bight with sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies from June 3rd, 2024. Red values indicate higher than average SST and blue values are below average. Anomalies were calculated from a seasonal SST climatology based on the MUR data over 2003–2014. Source: NASA Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center.

Monitoring ecological indicators

Marine ecosystems are complex, so we need ecological indicators in order to assess changes in environmental conditions and populations from phytoplankton to whales. At the top of the food chain, marine predators, such as seabirds and marine mammals, provide signals about changes in marine ecosystems that are otherwise too difficult and expensive to measure directly. Since winter 2024, there have been signs that California’s coastal marine ecosystem is under duress. Monitoring of California sea lions found unusually high numbers of aborted fetuses at rookeries in the Channel Islands and as far north as Año Nuevo Island. Monitoring of brown pelicans, the quintessential seabird of California, has shown extremely poor reproductive performance this year (after many years of high breeding success), and hundreds of emaciated pelicans were brought to rehabilitation centers in March and April. Farallon Institute seabird monitoring of seabirds has also shown signs of food stress in the system: Brandt’s cormorants on Alcatraz Island are breeding, but in very reduced numbers, and their egg-laying commenced much later than normal. Other seabirds are also struggling. 

So, what gives? Our interpretation is that these observations, while disturbing in their impacts to individual animals, are not unexpected or particularly alarming given the strong El Niño conditions that have prevailed in the ocean since late 2023. Every El Niño event studied by biological oceanographers in California to date has resulted in changes to marine ecosystems, and this one is no different in that some of our best indicators are showing signs of food stress. But, the specifics of these could not be predicted beforehand, so monitoring is the only means of tracking what is happening. The good news is that pelicans and sea lions, as well as many other top predator populations in California, have been faring well of late. Their populations are at all-time highs after many years of high reproduction due to copious food resources, particularly anchovy. In ecology, populations are expected to show compensatory effects when abundance exceeds what the environment can support. Therefore, one interpretation of the poor productivity of pelicans and sea lions in early 2024 is “density-dependence”, that is, competition within and between populations for food resources, which, in this case, were probably created by the poor environmental conditions brought on by El Niño. Our colleagues at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography are working to determine if the abundance of small pelagic fish was reduced this year. In the meantime, we can thank our marine ecological monitoring systems for providing us with compelling signals from the top of the food chain that show how important it is to continuously pay attention.

Ocean observing in California

Farallon Institute scientists recently traveled to San Diego to participate in a conference focused on our ability to observe and measure the coastal ocean. The conference was hosted by three organizations central to these efforts (CalCOFI, SCCOOS, CeNCOOS; see below for descriptions) and Farallon Institute is a partner to all three groups. We collect data on seabird and marine mammal distributions in California by going out on research ships and surveying for CalCOFI and SCCOOS, we calculate indicators of ocean productivity (Multivariate Ocean Climate Index (MOCI) for SCCOOS and CeNCOOS), and we soon will also be working on indices of zooplankton populations collected by underwater gliders for SCCOOS and CeNCOOS. The conference gathered over 300 people from California and beyond to discuss how we collect and use ocean data for California industries, public safety, ocean conservation, and research. Below is a description of each organization and some of the innovative ways ocean data are collected.

1) CalCOFI (California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations): a 75-year and still running (!!!) ship-based sampling program that monitors the coastal ocean from San Diego to San Francisco. It’s one of the longest-running ocean observing programs in the world.

2) SCCOOS (Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System): a suite of ocean observations (see below for examples) from San Diego to Point Conception.

3) CeNCOOS (Central and Northern California Ocean Observing System): similar to SCCOOS but for the region from Point Conception to the Oregon Border.

Observations are collected from myriad platforms and all of the data are available (much of it in real time!) from an intuitive and easy-to-use data portal. A few examples of ways we observe the ocean:

1. Moorings and buoys. There are hundreds of these anchored throughout the coastal ocean with sensors positioned all along the mooring cable that measure temperature, salinity, pH, wave height and direction, wind speed, air temperature, and more. These data help mariners navigate the oceans safely and scientists better understand the functioning of the ocean.

2. High-frequency radar. Along the California Coast, mounted high above the ocean on bluffs, radar stations measure the movement of the surface of the ocean, providing surface current information. The data are used in emergencies to track oil spills or determine how lost objects might drift at sea, and by scientists in understanding how the currents move small planktonic organisms. 

3. Autonomous underwater vehicles. Small gliders travel up to three hundred kilometers offshore in a v-shaped pattern in the water column: diving down to 400 meters depth and up to the surface, over and over again. They provide lots of data on temperature, salinity, pH, and currents at depth, which is harder to sample and more limited in observations.

4. Models. Computer models pull together all the observation data and simulate the ocean environment, providing us with information for regions or time periods where there aren’t any observation data. 
   

Check out the SCCOOS and CeNCOOS Data Portal to see all the interesting and important data collected about our coast ocean!

Winds of change

In May, Dr. Helen Killeen (postdoctoral researcher) presented new research on the potential impacts of offshore wind energy development on California seabirds at the Ocean Observing Conference in San Diego, California (described in the above article “Ocean observing in California”). This project, also led by Drs. Brian Hoover (FI), Bill Sydeman (FI), and Erin Satterthwaite (California Collaborative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations [CalCOFI]), will leverage at-sea seabird observations conducted by the Farallon Institute aboard CalCOFI survey vessels to evaluate how new leases in the Morro Bay wind energy area (see map) may impact resident and migratory seabirds. 

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) recently approved three leases in the Morro Bay wind energy area and another two further north in the Humboldt, CA wind energy area (see map above). If fully developed, these two areas could provide up to 2.5 gigawatts of power - enough for nearly 2 million Californian households annually (some estimates are much higher). However, we still do not fully understand how these new installations could impact California’s dynamic and productive marine ecosystem. In her talk at the Ocean Observing Conference, Dr. Killeen explained that seabird-wind energy impacts are the result of overlap between bird populations and offshore wind energy areas, as well as species-by-species differences in the vulnerability of birds to offshore wind infrastructure. While some work has been done to understand overlap of species with wind energy areas, much more is needed in order to understand how particular species may be vulnerable or resistant to these new structures.