Weather, Climate & Upwelling

Changes and variability in climate and weather are fundamentally altering communities throughout coastal California, where more than 26 million people live, work, and play. Over time, these communities will be affected by rising sea levels, intensified storm surges, increased flooding, higher water temperatures, increased ocean acidification and deoxygenation, harmful algal blooms, and potentially even altering ocean currents and circulation patterns.

Detecting and understanding long-term change and variability in the environment are key to forecasting how such changes will affect all sectors of society—from human health to the health of the ocean systems we rely on—and to planning effective mitigation and adaptation strategies. Long time series and extensive model data from CeNCOOS and our partners underpin high-quality ocean and atmosphere forecasts, while also serving as a foundational record for understanding the consequences of anthropogenic change.

Rising to Meet the Challenge

CeNCOOS makes improvements and upgrades to the observing system, including equipment recapitalization, to ensure data quality and system reliability.  We fill gaps in observations, sensors, samplers, and platforms – including optical sensors, autonomous platforms, animal tags, and acoustics – to better support evolving regional priorities.  We are Improving the quality and consistency of observations for understanding both short-term variation and more subtle long-term changes in temperature, salinity, ocean currents, carbon dioxide, dissolved oxygen, and nutrients and integrate maturing, innovative, and efficient observing approaches into the CeNCOOS framework to deliver “climate quality” information.

Marine Heatwaves The following marine heatwave images were computed following the method in Hobday et al. (2016), slightly altered for
The Coastal Upwelling Transport Index (CUTI, pronounced "cutie") and the Biological Effective Upwelling Transport Index (BEUTI, pronounced "beauty") are two
Sea level is rising and these trends are presented here using accurately surveyed in tide guages. NOAA Sea level trends
NOAA Storm surge predictions are available here: ESTOFS Storm surge
The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) has created a climatology series for their longest deployed mooring. M1 climatology
Current Glider Position Track (blue line) and current location (red dot) A glider continuously transects CalCOFI Line 66.7 between Monterey
This glider continuously transects from approximately 10km offshore of Trinidad Head to about 300 km offshore, repeating the line every 15-20
Current Glider Position Track (blue line) and current location (red dot) A glider continuously transects CalCOFI Line 56.7 between Pt.