Scripps Institution of Oceanography

This taxonomic atlas illustrates the demersal and benthic invertebrates and fish observed in video transects made from 378 to 2765 m water depth in the rugged Southern California Borderland. Many of the images show fauna on mineral-rich substrates (ferromanganese crusts and phosphorites) associated with banks, ridges, knolls, escarpments and seamounts.  Images were collected in 2020 on E/V Nautilus as part of NA124 and in 2021 with the R/V Falkor as part of FK210726.

This report synthesizes critical gaps in coastal adaptation knowledge and technology for California that were identified through a review of the recent literature and policy documents, two workshops (one with adaptation practitioners, and one with scientists from the University of California, UC) and detailed analysis of selected case studies. It focuses on those gaps that if addressed, might best align future research with community coastal adaptation needs. The analysis is the result of a pilot multicampus collaboration on coastal resilience and adaptation between three UC campuses: Santa Cruz (UCSC), Santa Barbara (UCSB) and San Diego (UCSD). The goal of our collaboration was to generally identify current understandings of coastal hazard impacts and adaptation strategies along California’s heterogenous coastline.

While communities have made significant progress beginning to address coastal vulnerabilities and adaptation strategies, efforts face multiple challenges going forward. This study identified some overall trends in adaptation planning and identified 7 guiding questions and 33 key needs and gaps for actionable science that could help advance adaptation:

1) What is projected to happen? Targeted coastal science to (i) support prediction of climate change and related oceanographic forcing (sea level rise, wave energy, extreme conditions, etc.) prediction at the local level; and (ii) improve the characterization of climate change impacts on the coastal zone, such as changes in groundwater elevations and cascading impacts.

2) How can we better communicate this change? Integrate and convey existing and future sea level rise guidance for practitioners.

3) How can we center environmental justice, equity, and communities in adaptation investments? Improve community engagement with adaptation planning, and how to achieve more equitable outcomes in adaptation decisions.

4) What works? Evaluate adaptation interventions to inform pathway planning is needed, such as social cost-benefit analysis and cost-effectiveness of different strategies.

5) How can we effectively implement adaptation pathways, and avoid maladaptation? Integrate understanding of coastal change and engagement with community values, over different and varied time horizons and geographic scales.

6) Monitoring and technology: when interventions should be implemented and how to measure their performance? Integrate monitoring of coastal change and interventions to support improved planning, and address feedback in the adaptation decision process to support connected pathway adaptation and implementation.

7) How can we better integrate researcher and practitioner objectives to better support actionable adaptation plans? Align academic incentives and practices with the practical needs and timing of community and governmental decision processes.

The report also includes extended technical annexes with a review of existing data and tools relevant for coastal adaptation, policy, and guidance notes, and details of identified needs and gaps (see organization summary).

Charles F. Kennel is an American plasma physicist who served as the Executive Vice Chancellor of UCLA, the Associate Administrator of NASA, the Director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, and is the inaugural Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Science and Policy at the University of Cambridge. This volume contains his autobiography, which not only covers Dr. Kennel's own life but also offers perspectives on the history of science in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including the author's work in space research, plasma physics, astrophysics, climate change science, and sustainability.

The exchange of metabolites mediates algal and bacterial interactions that maintain ecosystem function. Yet, while 1000s of metabolites are produced, only a few molecules have been identifiedin these associations. Using the ubiquitous microalgae Pseudo-nitzschia sp., as a model, we employed an untargeted metabolomics strategy to assign structural characteristics to themetabolites that distinguished specific diatom-microbiome associations. We cultured five species of Pseudo-nitzschia, including two species that produced the toxin domoic acid, and examinedtheir microbiomes and metabolomes. A total of 4826 molecular features were detected by tandem mass spectrometry. Only 229 of these could be annotated using available mass spectral libraries,but by applying new in-silico annotation tools, characterization was expanded to 2710 features. The metabolomes of the Pseudo-nitzschia-microbiome associations were distinct and distinguished by structurally diverse nitrogen compounds, ranging from simple amines andamides to cyclic compounds such as imidazoles, pyrrolidines, and lactams. By illuminating the dark metabolomes, this study expands our capacity to discover new chemical targets that facilitatemicrobial partnerships and uncovers the chemical diversity that underpins algae-bacteria interactions.

Co-operation in the management of shared fish stocks is often necessary to achieve sustainability and reduce uncertainty. The United States of America (USA) and Mexico share a number of fish stocks and marine ecosystems, while there is some binational co operation in scientific research, unilateral management decisions are generally the rule. We present a case study using the giant sea bass (Stereolepis gigas, Polyprionidae) to highlight how these management and research asymmetries can skew national perceptions of population status for a fully transboundary species. Scientific publications and annual funding related to giant sea bass are 7x and 25x higher in the USA, respectively, despite the fact that 73% of the species’ range occurs in Mexico. Conversely, annual fishery production and consumptive value of giant sea bass in Mexico are 19x and 3.5x higher than in the USA, respectively, while the non consumptive value related to dive ecotourism is 76x higher in the USA. These asymmetries have generated a distorted view of the population status of the giant sea bass across its entire range. This and other factors related to historical fishery dynamics and policy must be accounted for when assessing population status, and subsequent appropriate management responses, across geopolitical boundaries.

The high-resolution expendable bathythermograph (HR-XBT) network measures temperature down to approximately 800 m along fixed transects. In comparison, Argo floats are distributed throughout the global ocean and measure temperature and salinity down to approximately 2000 m. Over the 2004-2019 period, the HR-XBT network tended to have a greater sampling density near the coast, while Argo sampling density was generally equivalent to, or greater than, the HR-XBT network in the ocean interior. To take advantage of the benefits of each of these observing systems, a method for combining measurements from HR-XBT, Argo, and satellite altimetry observations was implemented. This method produced estimates of geostrophic velocity and transport in the upper 800 m normal to the HR-XBT transects in the Indian and Pacific Oceans over an approximately 16 year period at high spatial (0.1° along-transect spacing) and temporal (1 month) resolutions. The combined method better resolved the mean geostrophic velocity and transport in the western boundary currents and their recirculations compared to estimates from a 2004-2018 mean high-resolution climatology computed using only Argo data. An additional benefit of the combined method is that it provides a monthly time series of velocity and transport for each HR-XBT transect. This monthly time series captures the temporal variability and will allow for examination of possible drivers of ocean transport.

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission provides information on changes to the Earth’s gravity field, including ocean mass. Long-term trends in the GRACE data are often considered unreliable due to uncertainties in the corrections made to calculate ocean mass from the raw measurements. Here, we use an independent estimate of ocean mass from satellite altimetry and in situ density data from five mooring sites and repeat hydrography to validate trends in GRACE over the North Atlantic, finding substantial agreement between the methods. The root mean square difference between ocean mass changes calculated with this method from the mooring data and those measured by GRACE is 3.5 mm/decade, much lower than the mean signal of 15.6±1.8 mm/decade for GRACE and 17.8±5.2 mm/decade for the altimetry-mooring estimate. The GRACE ocean mass data are then used to study the change in the deep circulation of the North Atlantic between the 2002/04/01-2009/03/31 and 2010/04/01-2017/03/31 periods, revealing a large-scale anticyclonic circulation anomaly off the North American coast. The change is associated with an increase of 13.9 ± 3.3 Sv (1Sv = 106 m3 s −1) of southward North Atlantic Deep Water flow in the interior between 30◦N and 40◦N, largely balanced by a northward anomaly of 10.7±3.3 Sv for the boundary circulation.  This implies an increased importance of interior pathways compared to the Deep Western Boundary Current for the spreading of North Atlantic Deep Water, which constitutes the lower limb of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.

Spatially broad and long-term monitoring studies are lacking in tropical intertidal systems yet are necessary to test predictions regarding community assembly. To fill this gap, we examined spatial and decadal temporal patterns in benthic community structure at rocky intertidal sites along the main islands of Hawai‘i. Quantitative community surveys done in 2017 across nine sites and five islands showed that organismal composition differed by site, substrate type, and island. Secondly, we leveraged an earlier dataset collected using the same methods and analyzed intertidal communities at five sites on three Hawaiian islands for temporal changes in organismal abundance and composition from 2006 and 2007 vs. 2016 and 2017. Overall community structure differed significantly across years and decades. Most decadal differences were site specific, such as the fivefold increase in turf algae at one site. Crustose coralline algae and Turbinaria ornata increased significantly across five sites; both are physically resilient algae and similar increases in their abundances have been observed in tropical systems worldwide. This increase in physically resilient macroalgal species is potentially caused by global drivers, such as rising temperatures and changing land uses. In conclusion, there is evidence that both local and regional factors contribute to structuring tropical intertidal communities.

The Solomon Sea is an important region for western Pacific water mass circulation, serving as the pathway that connects subtropical and equatorial waters. To observe this water mass transport, nine moorings were deployed in the exit channels of the Solomon Sea as an observational component of the Southwest Pacific Ocean Circulation and Climate Experiment (SPICE). This report details the deployment and recovery of the moored velocity, temperature, salinity, and pressure observations and the subsequent quality control procedures applied to the recovered observations. A summary of the quality controlled data is also given for each mooring.