Good tidings! Our year-end review of ocean conditions off the Oregon coast ranked 2021 as the second most productive year in the 24 year time series! An early spring transition, strong upwelling, and cold, salty water set the stage for higher than average biomass of cold-water northern copepods (ranked #1 in the time series), and lower than average biomass of warm-water southern copepods. Check out our website to learn more about the ocean ecosystem indicators and the “stoplight table” we use to summarize and rank each indicator across years.
It’s beginning to look a lot like winter along the Newport Hydrographic Line with clean, clear waters and the winter zooplankton community dominating net samples. The Secchi disk was still visible 10-feet beneath the water surface at NH05 on both of our October trips, and over 11-feet beneath the surface at NH15 during our last run in November.
This post was written by Anna Bolm, who quantifies phytoplankton for the Newport Line team.
