Perspectives on Ocean Climate from a 60+ Year Ocean Observation Program

CalCOFI is a 62-year end-to-end (‘winds to whales’) ocean observation program of the southern California Current. The time series underpins our understanding of interannual and decadal-scale variability in the region from ENSO to the Pacific Decadal and North Pacific Gyre Oscillations. Over this period, CalCOFI has continued to evolve, adopting new sampling methods and developing a number of multi-disciplinary partnerships. Today, CalCOFI monitors a greatly expanded range of ecological groups form the plankton to seabirds, marine mammals, and multi-frequency acoustic observations of coastal pelagics and the micronekton. Multivariate analysis of the CalCOFI ichthyoplankton time series is revealing striking new patterns of ecosystem structure and change in the diverse fish community of the California Current. These observations and analyses are together leading to a new understanding of the potential impacts of climate change, including the ecological impacts of growing deepwater hypoxia.