Ocean & Climate Impact
The California Current Ecosystem (CCE) is a dynamic ocean environment extending from southern British Columbia, Canada to Baja California, Mexico. The CCE is highly productive, characterized by seasonal upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water supporting forage populations of krill, squid, sardines, and other species fed upon by larger fishes, seabirds, and marine mammals. This productive coastal ecosystem sustains active fisheries for a variety of finfish and marine invertebrates and plays a key role in the economies of coastal communities.
Scientists have suggested major subregions of the CCE with the southern subregion extending from Point Conception to central Baja California. Within this location is the Southern California Bight (SCB) that includes coastal southern California, the Channel Islands and the local portion of the Pacific Ocean. Circulation patterns within the SCB are more complex than elsewhere off the US West Coast.
Map of the Southern California Bight, courtesy C. Goldfinger and J. Chaytor, OSU
Since 1951, the SCB has studied and monitored the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) program and other portions of the CCE. Scientists, recognizing the value of these long-term observations, have added additional ocean monitoring programs, including fish stock assessments. When coupled with forecasts from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center on whether the Pacific Ocean will experience La Niña, El Niño, or Niño-neutral conditions, scientists can generate near-term predictions for how specific ecosystem components will react in the upcoming year.
These monitoring efforts show that external factors force alterations to the SCB, and CCE in general, on multiple time scales. This includes a warming trend documented over the past six decades, year-to-year temperature fluctuations dominated by El Niño, and marine heatwaves that form locally or act across the Pacific Ocean. In addition, scientists are aware of long-term warming and cooling cycles over 20–30-year cycles represented by the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). The PDO is an index of variation in the North Pacific’s sea surface temperature. For years, it and other indices helped predict fish productivity and distribution patterns. But with continued warming of the world’s oceans, these tools are becoming less and less reliable for summarizing and understanding physical and biological relationships such as the current presence of bluefin tuna in the SBO and not Mexico, and the occurrence of northern albacore in more northern waters.