Over recent decades, the Bering Sea has experienced oceanic and atmospheric
climate extremes, including record warm ocean temperature anomalies and marine heatwaves (MHWs), and increasingly variable air-sea heat fluxes. In this work, we assess the relative roles of surface forcing and ocean dynamical processes on mixed layer temperature (MLT) tendency...
Global warming is expected to cause significant changes in the pattern of precipitation minus evaporation (𝑃 − 𝐸), which represents the net flux of water from the atmosphere to the surface or, equivalently, the convergence of moisture transport within the atmosphere. In most global climate model simulations, the pattern of...
Coastal communities face heightened risk to coastal flooding and erosion hazards due to sea-level rise, changing storminess patterns, and evolving human development pressures. Incorporating uncertainty associated with both climate change and the range of possible adaptation measures is essential for projecting the evolving exposure to coastal flooding and erosion, as...
Maintaining the quality and quantity of water resources in light of complex changes in climate, human land use, and ecosystem composition requires detailed understanding of ecohydrologic function within catchments, yet monitoring relevant upstream characteristics can be challenging. In this study, we investigate how variability in riverine microbial communities can be...
Summertime low clouds are common in the Pacific Northwest (PNW), but spatiotemporal patterns have not been characterized. We show the first maps of low cloudiness for the western PNW and North Pacific Ocean using a 22‐year satellite‐derived record of monthly mean low cloudiness frequency for May through September and supplemented...
A critical barrier to effective management of deep-sea resources is a lack of understanding by society of the benefits received from the oceans. To address this knowledge gap, we applied an iterative design-based research methodology to evaluate (1) how to effectively use an exhibit to increase public literacy of the...
Oregon estuaries provide important opportunities to assess controls on tidal saline wetland carbon burial and sediment accretion as both rates of relative sea level rise (RSLR; −1.4 ± 0.9 to 2.8 ± 0.8 mm yr⁻¹) and fluvial suspended sediment load relative to estuary area (0.23 to 17 × 10³ t...
Visible through shortwave (VSWIR) spectral reflectance of the geologic units across the basal Tertiary nonconformity (BTN) is characterized at three spatially disparate locations in California. At two of these sites, location-specific spectral endmembers are obtained from AVIRIS imaging spectroscopy and linear spectral mixture models are used to visualize spatial patterns...
Probabilistic flood hazard assessment is a promising methodology for estuarine risk assessment but currently remains limited by prohibitively long simulation times. This study addresses this problem through the development of an emulator, or surrogate model, which replaces the simulator (in this case the coupled ADCIRC+SWAN model) with a statistical representation...
1. Globally, river systems have been extensively modified through alterations in riverscapes and flow regimes, reducing their capacity to absorb geophysical and environmental changes.
2. In western North America and elsewhere, alterations in natural flow regimes and swimways through dams, levees, and floodplain development, work in concert with fire regime,...
This case study explores how to add value to regional ocean condition forecast information by bringing awareness to the processes that govern decision-making and outcomes within the system. A modified mental models research approach is applied to examine differences and similarities in perceptions of risk and comfort with uncertainty between...
Whether CaCO₃ dissolves within the top centimeters of marine sediments overlaid by deep, supersaturated bottom waters remains an area of debate in geochemistry. This uncertainty stems from the fact that different methods used to assess CaCO₃ dissolution rates often provide what appear to be profoundly different results. Here we combine...
Coastal upwelling ecosystems around the world are defined by wind-generated currents that bring deep, nutrient-rich waters to the surface ocean where they fuel exceptionally productive food webs. These ecosystems are also now understood to share a common vulnerability to ocean acidification and hypoxia (OAH). In the California Current Large Marine...
Ocean acidification (OA) has had significant negative effects on oyster populations on the west coast of North America over the past decade. Many studies have focused on the physiological challenges experienced by young oyster larvae in high pCO₂/low pH seawater with reduced aragonite saturation state (Ωarag), which is characteristic of...
A major goal of the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO) has been to understand the impacts of climate change and variability on the coastal ecosystems of the inner shelf of the California Current Large Marine System in particular, and other marine and even nonmarine systems more generally....
Despite progressive policies and continued advances in ocean management, numerous shifts associated with global changes have been observed in marine ecosystems in recent years, including warming, ocean acidification, and deoxygenation. As global change accelerates, science is needed to inform evidence-based management strategies for continued ecosystem services. Resilience management, in which...
Twenty years ago, the creation of a new scientific program, the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO), funded by the Packard Foundation, provided the opportunity to integrate—from the outset—research, monitoring, and outreach to the public, policymakers, and managers. PISCO’s outreach efforts were initially focused primarily on sharing scientific...
Extreme water levels generating flooding in estuarine and coastal environments are often driven by compound events, where many individual processes such as waves, storm surge, streamflow, and tides coincide. Despite this, extreme water levels are typically modeled in isolated open-coast or estuarine environments, potentially mischaracterizing the true risk of flooding...
This dataset contains data layers used and produced by a fuzzy logic model for biomass loss risk under projected climate change in Oregon and Washington west of the Cascade Mountains crest.
Bedrock (U-Th)/He data reveal an Eocene exhumation difference greater than four kilometers athwart Owens Valley, California near the Alabama Hills. This difference is localized at the eastern fault-bound edge of the valley between the Owens Valley Fault and the Inyo-White Mountains Fault. Time-temperature modeling of published data reveal a major...