Bridging From Monitoring to Solutions-Based Thinking: Lessons From CalCOFI for Understanding and Adapting to Marine Climate Change Impacts

Abstract

Multidisciplinary, integrated ocean observing programs provide critical data for monitoring the effects of climate change on marine ecosystems. California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) samples along the US West Coast and is one of the world's longest-running and most comprehensive time series, with hydrographic and biological data collected since 1949. The pairing of ecological and physical measurements across this long time series informs our understanding of how the California Current marine ecosystem responds to climate variability. By providing a baseline to monitor change, the CalCOFI time series serves as a Keeling Curve for the California Current. However, challenges remain in connecting the data collected from long-term monitoring programs with the needs of stakeholders concerned with climate change adaptation (i.e., resource managers, policy makers, and the public), including for the fisheries and aquaculture sectors. We use the CalCOFI program as a case study to ask: how can long-term ocean observing programs inform ecosystem based management efforts and create data flows that meet the needs of stakeholders working on climate change adaptation? Addressing this question and identifying solutions requires working across sectors and recognizing stakeholder needs. Lessons learned from CalCOFI can inform other regional monitoring programs around the world, including those done at a smaller scale in developing countries.

Improving landings forecasts using environmental covariates: A case study on the Indian oil sardine (Sardinella longiceps)

“…A longer‐term approach would be incorporation of recruitment information from egg or larval density surveys. Such surveys have been conducted on the U.S. West coast since the 1940 s by the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) Program (Gallo et al, 2019), and these data have been successfully used to improve abundance estimation and management of the Pacific sardine (McClatchie, 2014). Leading abundance indicators, such as from preliminary catch data or larval surveys, are likely to be especially important if climate changes alter past relationships of catch with the environmental covariates.…”

Integrating Biodiversity and Environmental Observations in Support of National Marine Sanctuary and Large Marine Ecosystem Assessments

“…Its resources sustain major economic activity and food security. The CCLME is also one of the most robustly observed systems in the world (e.g., Chavez et al, 2017;Barth, 2018;Chan et al, 2019;Gallo et al, 2019). Yet even in this well-studied region, major challenges persist in collecting and delivering biological and ecosystem data and information suitable for understanding, managing, and adapting to ecosystem changes and human activities.…”

Identification of Shared Spatial Dynamics in Temperature, Salinity, and Ichthyoplankton Community Diversity in the California Current System With Empirical Dynamic Modeling

“…CalCOFI samples a myriad of physical factors throughout the water column with a conductivity temperature depth instrument (McClatchie, 2014;Gallo et al, 2019). We focus here on temperature and salinity because these variables are known to impact the distribution and abundance of many marine species (Thompson et al, 2014(Thompson et al, , 2017.…”

“…The California Cooperative Oceanographic Fisheries Investigation (CalCOFI) program is among the longest-running oceanographic surveys in the world (Gallo et al, 2019). The survey has a fixed station design that has at times collected physical oceanographic (e.g., temperature, salinity) and plankton (e.g., zooplankton, ichthyoplankton) samples from southern Baja California, Mexico to Vancouver Island, Canada.…”

“…The survey has a fixed station design that has at times collected physical oceanographic (e.g., temperature, salinity) and plankton (e.g., zooplankton, ichthyoplankton) samples from southern Baja California, Mexico to Vancouver Island, Canada. However, the most comprehensive temporal coverage ranges from the US-Mexico border to the San Francisco Bay area extending from the nearshore to roughly 500 km offshore (Gallo et al, 2019). Although the original intent of CalCOFI was to better elucidate the factors causing the collapse of the Pacific sardine population in the 1940s (Hewitt, 1988), data from the survey now extend beyond fisheries applications and serve as an indicator of overall ecosystem status (Sugihara et al, 2011;Thompson et al, 2018;Harvey et al, 2019).…”