Dear NANOOS members and interested parties,
It is with immense gratitude and pride that I reflect on NANOOS' new five-year cooperative agreement with NOAA IOOS. This investment in observing and modeling the coastal ocean, estuaries, and shorelines of Washington, Oregon, and N. California provides real-time and forecast
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information and integrated data products to support known and emerging stakeholder needs. These annually allocated funds allow NANOOS to continue to engage with the public and specific user groups, increasing the utility of the data for coastal resiliency and optimizing safety, economy, and sustainability.
I am so appreciative of all the effort and care that went into crafting the proposal, based on input received by the public over the years, on-going prioritization by our 70-member Governing Council, and advanced through the ingenuity and determination of our Principal Investigators and their staff. NANOOS was well-served by an elected Executive Council who evaluated all the input to recommend a plan that was well-reviewed. It is gratifying to work on an effort where many people care about understanding our coastal environment, where many people work together in partnership to make things work effectively, and where many voices are heard.
In the coming years, NANOOS will focus on increasing the equity and diversity of our engagement throughout our efforts. Additional enhancements planned include an increased focus on observing biology and harmful algal blooms and maintaining our strengths. As always, please feel free to reach out with your needs, comments, or ideas.
More information, including the official press release, is available here.
my best,
Jan A. Newton, Ph.D.
NANOOS Executive Director
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New Quileute/UW Real-time Hypoxia-Monitoring Moorings
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The Quileute Indian Tribe, UW-APL, and NANOOS collaborated on a project to improve responsiveness to and understanding of WA shelf hypoxia events, particularly in relation to the Quileute Treaty Dungeness crab fishery. The Quileute Indian Tribe has long recognized the need for real-time oxygen data to evaluate hypoxia and guide fishing and management decisions. Funds were made available to the tribe through the Fishery Disaster Relief Program for Tribal Fisheries under the Bi-partisan Budget Act of 2018 in response to a crab fishery disaster in 2015.
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The Quileute Natural Resources Program worked with UW-APL to build, deploy, and initially maintain two real-time oceanographic moorings, which are equipped with near-bottom oxygen sensors and profiling current meters allowing for detection of hypoxic water and measurement of the transport of this water.
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Columbia River Buoy Deployments
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As part of CRITFC's long-term monitoring of the Columbia River estuary and plume, the CMOP plume buoy (SATURN-02) and Baker Bay (SATURN-07) buoys have been redeployed.
The deployment of the SATURN-02 restored seasonal monitoring (begun in 2011) of salinity, temperature, chlorophyll, turbidity, CDOM and dissolved oxygen at multiple depths from near-surface to near-seabed, as well as meteorological observations. The plume buoy provides information on the structure of the Columbia River plume, on ocean source waters for the estuary, and on shallow shelf water conditions. After a 2 month deployment, SATURN-02 was recovered in early October. It is scheduled to be redeployed in May 2022.
SATURN-07 is located in the most ocean-ward lateral bay on the Columbia River. It measures salinity, temperature, oxygen, chlorophyll, turbidity, and CDOM, monitoring the phytoplankton blooms and the exchange between the main-stem Columbia and the Bay.
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NANOOS is pleased to announce that the UW Friday Harbor Laboratories’ Ocean Observatory (FHLOO) is now transmitting near-real time data to NVS. Variables include temperature, salinity, oxygen, chlorophyll, pH, CO2, and turbidity, which complement continuous monitoring of microplankton using an Imaging FlowCytoBot.
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FHLOO was funded by the National Science Foundation and UW. This will be a key observing asset for the area; the FHLOO occupies a central position in the Salish Sea, influenced by both Fraser River conditions and the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
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The Washington Shelf Glider has returned to service thanks to a partnership between Oregon State University (OSU), the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC), and the Quinault Indian Nation.
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The July and September glider-based maps on NVS show the evolution of upwelling and near-bottom low-oxygen water through the 2021 “hypoxia season.” The September map was made as early fall storms began to mix up the water column and move bottom waters offshore during downwelling. This glider will be deployed next in April 2022 and will travel further offshore to survey the deeper source waters anticipated to reach the coast during the following upwelling season.
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Tsunami Evacuation Routes Expand
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With input from the scientists at the Geological Survey of WA DNR, NANOOS recently updated the NVS Tsunami Evacuation app to include new tsunami inundation model results completed for all areas within the Puget Sound and parts of the Strait of Georgia to encourage hazard planning and increase community resilience throughout the region.
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Modeling results indicate that the tsunami would first arrive in all inner coastal waterway locations as a trough, with sea level gradually receding, and would reach the west side of Whidbey Island in about 90 minutes, with large wave crests in excess of 5 m (16 ft) traveling north into the Strait of Georgia and south through Puget Sound. Most other locations within Puget Sound and parts of the Strait of Georgia would encounter this first tsunami wave within 2–4 hours of the earthquake, leaving little time to issue official warnings, although any felt earthquake shaking is an immediate warning.
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2020 Puget Sound Marine Waters Overview
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A comprehensive look at Puget Sound marine conditions for the year 2020 is now available. Physical, chemical, and biological information, ranging from large-scale climate variations to local biota monitoring, is summarized to provide a thorough overview of conditions in Puget Sound and the surrounding area during 2020.
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The report includes many contributions from NANOOS, and is published by Puget Sound Partnership and UW's Puget Sound Institute as part of the Puget Sound Ecosystem Monitoring Program.
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