On February 28th at 2pm in amphitheatre A at IUEM, we will welcome Mark Ohman (Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego) who will present us his work on the following topic:

Dynamics of an Eastern Boundary Current Ecosystem:  The California Current Ecosystem LTER site.

Below is a summary of his presentation.

The California Current Ecosystem Long Term Ecological Research (CCE-LTER) site is an hypothesis-driven, interdisciplinary research program that addresses multi-scale changes in a major Eastern Boundary Current upwelling ecosystem. CCE-LTER benefits from the pre-existing CalCOFI time series, now in its 70th year, which provides important context for distinguishing true secular changes from intrinsic ocean variability. CCE-LTER is a multi-faceted program that integrates Lagrangian-design experimental cruises, diverse observational technologies (both shipboard and autonomous), multiple modeling efforts, human capacity-building, and outreach. Of several possible mechanisms underlying pelagic ecosystem change in this region, the CCE-LTER group is currently focusing on temporal variability of cross-shore fluxes associated with coastal upwelling filaments. Our research targets the planktonic components of the pelagic ecosystem, viewed from both ecological and biogeochemical perspectives.

This presentation will provide a brief overview of CCE-LTER, which is based at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography but includes partners at 6 other institutions, and is supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation. The presentation will also touch on the capabilities of Zooglider, a new autonomous zooplankton-sensing vehicle designed and constructed by the Instrument Development Group at Scripps. It employs in situ shadowgraph imaging and dual-frequency acoustic backscatter to characterize the zooplankton community, and is now being utilized in the context of CCE-LTER.