The historic Norwegian tall ship Statsraad Lehmkuhl set sail for San Francisco from the Port of Seattle on Monday, marking the end of and another stop on the to support a sustainable future at sea.

The ship, built in 1914, boasts three towering masts and hails from Bergen, Norway. During the inaugural One Ocean Week Seattle, organized by , it docked at Pier 66 to welcome attendees and members of the public aboard to explore and learn.

The drew hundreds of people to Seattle to discuss marine ecosystems, the seafood industry, shipping and renewable energy, and more. 91探花 scientists joined policymakers, educators and industry leaders to define and address priorities in stewardship and ocean science.

, a 91探花affiliate professor and research scientist at the Center for Ecosystem Sentinels, served as a panelist on the 鈥淐oast to Coast Collaboration in Research鈥� aboard Statsraad Lehmkuhl on Friday morning.

Moore contributed her expertise as a marine mammal ecologist to help launch the in the Pacific Arctic in 2010, leading to an international effort to establish a network of observatories in the Arctic to track ecosystem health amidst physical changes to the region.

The panel, part of a series hosted by , offered a chance to discuss shared goals as melting ice opens the Arctic up to more traffic.

鈥淚t was an important opportunity for international collaboration and public engagement regarding rapid ecosystem changes in Arctic, and local, waters,鈥� Moore said.

, a 91探花professor of mechanical engineering, helped lead a 鈥渂ehind the scenes鈥� lab tour hosted by the , which joins researchers at UW, Oregon State University and the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

During the tour, researchers showcased marine energy monitoring projects at the , including videos and sonar documenting interactions between marine life and tidal energy turbines, sensors to detect underwater collisions, and systems to monitor how much noise is produced by the devices that help harness energy from waves and currents.

鈥淭hese tools help us identify and minimize environmental effects associated with harnessing energy from waves, tides and rivers,鈥� Polagye said.

, a 91探花principal research scientist of aquatic and fishery sciences participated in a panel discussion, where he shared his work on habitat in , which borders downtown Seattle. Toft鈥檚 lab studies how shoreline development impacts habitat value for young salmon.

鈥淎lthough the shorelines of Elliott Bay have been heavily modified, restoration efforts have had positive results,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he panel gave us a chance to discuss the importance of maintaining a healthy shoreline along a major urban working waterfront.鈥�

Despite the density of human activity along the shores of Elliott Bay, these waters are home to key species, including kelp, orcas and salmon. Maintaining functionality without losing habitat is a challenge, requiring input from various stakeholders, and creativity.

, a coastal hazards specialist at , provided an update on observed and projected sea level rise during a Friday workshop bringing together coastal managers and tribes around the Puget Sound region.

鈥淭he opportunity to meet in person with that many people who all came for the workshop was invaluable,鈥� he said.

To connect with a 91探花expert in ocean or environmental science, contact Gillian Dohrn in 91探花News at gdohrn@uw.edu.

The report includes projections for more than 150 different sites along the Washington coastline, from all marine shorelines in Washington state. It incorporates the unique geology-driven land motion, with uplift at Neah Bay and sinking in Seattle. And it provides the latest, probabilistic estimates to let planners weigh the risks of different scenarios.

The projections, July 30, include an embedded Google map where anyone who is involved with planning projects along the coast can download estimates for their location.

“One of the things we’ve heard from the planners we have shown it to so far is ‘Hey, for the first time we have something that we feel is actionable,'” said first author , a coastal hazards specialist at . “I hope we’re going to hear that more, and that these projections will find their way into planning processes at the community scale.”

The new report provides probabilistic estimates for 171 coastal sites each decade from now until 2150. The analysis follows two previous assessments of sea-level rise in the state: the for sea-level rise in Washington, Oregon and California, and a led by the 91探花. In addition to updating the science, the new report offers more detail on what to expect at specific locations.

The study follows a 2015 91探花 on how climate change will affect Puget Sound. This new study provides much greater detail about sea-level rise, both in Puget Sound and along the coast.

“Previous assessments were zoomed out, and were not fine-scale enough to capture the variations in land movement along the coastlines,” said second author , a research consultant with the 91探花Climate Impacts Group. “Neah Bay is rising, and south Puget Sound is sinking. That up and down movement has a pretty big influence on how far the ocean will be able to travel inland.”

The numbers also offer the first probabilistic projections for sea-level rise in Washington state. Instead of just giving low, medium and high estimates, the authors applied a recently developed method that calculates the percent chance that a given water level will be exceeded, allowing planners to decide how they want to respond to, for instance, a water level with a 1 percent chance of occurring by a given year.

“There are two factors that determine what steps a community might take to adapt, and both really need to be decided at the local level. First, what is the context 鈥� is it a hospital or other piece of critical infrastructure, or is it a park? That’s your risk tolerance. And second, what is your value judgment of the amount of risk that’s acceptable?” said third author , a research scientist at the Climate Impacts Group.

The new report is part of the , a three-year effort by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The larger project includes collaborations with partners at Island County, which covers Whidbey Island and Camano Island, and the City of Tacoma to incorporate climate change in coastal plans.

Report authors have been working with governments to incorporate these new numbers into their coastal plans, and with other state and environmental groups to consider sea-level rise projections in their coastal restoration projects.

Overall, the new report gives a statewide estimate for about 1.5 feet of sea-level rise by 2100 if we manage to limit future greenhouse emissions. The upper bound for 2100, with emissions reductions, is about 7 feet, incorporating the latest science on Antarctic glaciers that increases the amount of possible sea-level rise under certain scenarios.

Future sea-level rise is inevitable from the amount of greenhouse gases already emitted, but longer-term estimates depend on how much we will be able to limit future emissions. On top of these big-picture uncertainties, Washington state’s complex coastline and geologic activity create more unknowns for coastal communities.

When working with the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe on coastal planning, Miller saw some of the frustrations of working with low, medium and high projections while not knowing how to weigh the various risks. Communities on the coast are also aware that the land is being pushed up by the offshore geologic fault, but were unsure how much that would counteract rising seas.

“People in our coastal communities are aware that we have vertical land movement, and that has led to misconceptions about whether we need to worry about climate-driven sea-level rise,” Miller said. “It’s important to include, because if you don’t, it leaves that lingering possibility in people’s minds.”

Other co-authors are , a 91探花associate professor of Earth and space sciences, and , a former 91探花graduate student; and at the University of Oregon; and at the U.S. Geological Survey. The study was largely funded by the NOAA’s and NOAA’s , with additional support from project partners the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Island County, the City of Tacoma, The Nature Conservancy, Washington Department of Ecology, King County and Padilla Bay National Estuary Research Reserve.

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For more information on the report, contact Miller, who is based in Port Angeles, at immiller@uw.edu or 360-417-6460 and Morgan, who is based in Seattle, at hmorg@uw.edu or 206-685-4068. The full report is available at.

For decades, resource managers agreed that removing the two dams on the Elwha River would be a big win for the watershed as a whole and, in particular, for its anadromous trout and salmon. The dams sat on the river for more than 100 years, trapping approximately 30 million tonnes of sediment behind their concrete walls. As the dams were removed between 2012 and 2014, much of this sediment was released downstream 鈥� and scientists had little comparisons to draw from to understand what this sediment load would do to the marine ecosystem at the mouth of the river.

In the time since the dams鈥� removal, scientists from 91探花-based , the U.S. Geological Survey, Washington Department of Natural Resources, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, the Environmental Protection Agency and the聽 91探花have sifted through eight years of data collected before and after the dam removal projects to analyze the impacts the resulting sediment load has had on the nearshore ecosystems near the mouth of the Elwha River. Their in the journal PLOS ONE in December 2017.

鈥淭he main impetus for the dam removal was the salmon reintroduction,鈥� said study co-author Stephen Rubin, a USGS fishery biologist. 鈥淏ut it was also about a whole ecosystem restoration, all the way from above the dams to the strait.鈥�

In the short-term, however, some hypothesized that the sediment influx to the nearby coastal marine ecosystem could negatively impact certain species. This study sought to monitor these potential impacts and the ecosystem鈥檚 progression as it adjusted to post-dam life.

They found that how organisms were affected depended on the type of sediment that was deposited in their habitat (for example, whether it was sand or mud) and the local turbidity (how murky suspended sediment had made the water). Still, some organisms were more resilient to the changes than others.

According to their results, the dam removal projects did not result in significant overall changes in the invertebrate or fish communities. Kelp, however, markedly decreased. Understandably so, since kelp relies on light for photosynthesis, and when more sediment is suspended in the water, there is less light available to them.

鈥淲e viewed this as an opportunity to find out what really happens to the nearshore environment after a dam is removed,鈥� said co-author , coastal hazards specialist at Washington Sea Grant.

The researchers used SCUBA surveys and towed video transects to quantify the relative abundances of algae, invertebrate species and benthic fish living along the shore near the river, and then compared these findings to the patterns of sediment influx using data collected by the USGS and the 91探花School of Oceanography on substrate changes, and MODIS satellite imagery to track changes in the suspended sediment in the water column.

鈥淲e had a huge suite of data we were working with, which is one of the things that made this such a complicated endeavor,鈥� Miller said.

While the study showed a decrease in kelp, Miller notes that these are still relatively early days on the Elwha鈥檚 road to recovery. More recent data suggests that, over the last two years, kelp populations at the mouth of the river have already begun to rebound.

鈥淓ven where we saw a negative consequence for one group of organisms, kelp, in our more recent surveys we鈥檝e already begun to see a rapid recovery,鈥� Miller said. Another proverbial grain of sand to add to the pile of knowledge that could help resource managers elsewhere assess the impacts of events that send large amounts of sediment into the coastal zone 鈥� and answer questions such as whether to remove dams on their own local rivers.

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For more information, contact Miller at聽360-417-6460 or immiller@uw.edu.

91探花 researchers are tracking what the season will deliver to the Pacific Northwest region.

For Washington, El Ni帽o typically brings warm, and often dry, winter weather. That may seem surprising, since the state just experienced a very wet December, according to the latest from the UW-based state climatologist’s office. Many places broke previous records for the month. But that precipitation does not seem to be linked to El Ni帽o.

“We were very fortunate, from a water-supply point of view, to get all that lowland rain and mountain snow when we did, because that’s not always the case during El Ni帽o,” said , Washington’s state climatologist and a researcher with the UW-based .

“And looking ahead, at least in the short term, it looks like there’s not going to be a lot of precipitation.”

The West Coast effects of El Ni帽o tend to peak in January and February and continue to be felt through March. But the Godzilla El Ni帽o in the tropical Pacific doesn’t necessarily mean we need to brace for monster-sized effects in this region.

“There’s not a strict relationship between the magnitude of the El Ni帽o and the magnitude of the response at the higher latitudes,” Bond said. “Sometimes more moderate El Ni帽os seem to have a really big response, and other times the strong ones have a more moderate response. It’s not a one-to-one relationship.”

So far, this El Ni帽o is shaping up to be a textbook event, said , a 91探花professor of atmospheric sciences who has covered the topic on his .

“It’s been following the typical route for a strong El Ni帽o,” Mass said. “Typically, even a strong El Ni帽o doesn’t have a lot of implications for this region in the early winter, but after the first of the year the teleconnections develop and the jet stream splits to bring rainstorms to California and Alaska, with Washington right in the middle,” he said.

“This El Ni帽o is following the typical game plan, particularly the increasing effects after the new year.”

Observations show this El Ni帽o is already weakening in the tropics, Mass said, and models suggest a neutral situation by the middle of summer, and either neutral or the opposing La Ni帽a phase by next winter.

Along the West Coast, El Ni帽o conditions tend to bring higher sea level and bigger winter waves, which together can create more flooding and storm damage along the coast. They also can shift the direction of storm waves to come from the southwest, rather than from the west, which has been shown in past years to alter the shape of beaches in Oregon and California.

How these various factors influence Washington state, though, is less clear, said , a coastal hazards specialist in Port Angeles with the UW-based . Miller discussed the coastal effects of El Ni帽o in a last fall. He will be checking tide gauges to see if average sea levels for the year are unusually high, and visiting beaches to see how they fare this season.

“One of the things I’m interested in doing this winter is better documenting what an El Ni帽o winter means for Washington’s coast, in particular the north coast and the Strait of Juan de Fuca,” Miller said.

In the water, El Ni帽o leaves its mark by both water and air, said , an oceanographer at the 91探花Applied Physics Laboratory who tracks regional ocean conditions.

“During an El Ni帽o year we often have warmer and saltier than normal ocean conditions,” Newton said. “And it’s coming from both the effect of the ocean, which would have those warmer waters, and the effects on our weather, which would be warmer air temperatures and less precipitation.”

El Ni帽o’s effects on the ocean will largely replace the phenomenon known as “,” the unusually warm patch in the northern Pacific that influenced coastal weather and marine ecosystems in 2014 and 2015.

That pattern 鈥� which included ocean temperatures of up to 7 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than usual 鈥� continues to be a subject of scientific study. A at the 91探花Jan. 20 and 21 will review the unusual pattern of the blob, its effects, whether this event could have been forecast, and also consider how any remnants may be interacting with El Ni帽o.

Although the warm-water blob is now mostly history, climate models project that the coastal winds will be more from the south than usual, resulting in a strip of relatively warm water along the West Coast this spring, Bond said. This phenomenon is related to yet another climate cycle known as the .

“All the models are showing that to be the case, but to varying extent. It looks like it will be warm enough along the coast to have some significant effects,” Bond said. “People are keeping an eye on that, because the ocean has [already] been warm for a couple of years. If that continues, it’s going to have implications for the marine ecosystem.”

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For more information, contact Bond at 206-526-6459 or nab3met@uw.edu, Mass at 206-685-0910 or cliff@atmos.washington.edu, Miller at 360-417-6460 or immiller@uw.edu, and Newton at 206-543-9152 or newton@apl.washington.edu.

Reporters interested in attending the “” workshop Jan. 20-21 should contact Newton at newton@apl.washington.edu.

Remnants of the wreckage continue to reach the Pacific Northwest: A washed up in December on a beach near Forks, Wash., a on a 20-foot boat that washed up in March in Long Beach, Wash., and washed ashore in March and April in Oregon. Japanese regularly wash up on the coast to provide a reminder of the lasting effects of the disastrous earthquake and tsunami.

, a coastal hazards specialist with , a UW-based center that’s part of the national Sea Grant network, co-authored a report on possible scenarios for debris accumulation in Washington state and has recently given public talks about the debris found to date.

“So far there still hasn鈥檛 been a big wash-up significantly above and beyond our normal debris load,” he said. He and hundreds of volunteers will comb the beach April 20 to see if that remains true after the largest annual beach cleanup of Washington’s coast.

Immediately after the March 11, 2011, tsunami, one of the concerns was that huge amounts of garbage would wash up on the U.S. coastline.

“What became obvious early on was that nobody had a clue,” Miller said. “There was a lot of uncertainty, a lot of contradictory information, and that caused anxiety.

“That tells me we need to focus on what is happening now, so that next time we have a more factual basis to make projections.”

To officially be designated as tsunami debris, an item must have an identifying marker and get verification of its origin from the Japanese government. However, pieces of plastic foam believed to have probably come from Japan are common, as are pieces of lumber that observers say are unlike their American counterparts.

A widely reported pulse of suspected tsunami material washed ashore in early summer, Miller said, and then things quieted down. Winter storms in recent months have been bringing more items.

Miller’s , published in the fall, predicted that most of the debris would wash up in Alaska, and that most would land within four years of the tsunami. Anecdotal reports and suggest that most material so far is in fact hitting Alaska, Miller said.

Computer models from the suggest that most of the tsunami material has washed ashore by now. Models from the show a large patch still offshore. But those are probably items that don’t catch the wind, such as plastic bags or pieces of wood, that likely will follow currents to what’s known as the garbage patch in the center of the North Pacific Gyre, Miller said.

He is studying the actual debris accumulation and working with colleagues at the National Park Service, NOAA and other agencies to monitor the beaches and dispose of the dock and other large items.

It’s not until the big annual cleanup that many of the more remote sections of beach are combed for litter. To document possible tsunami debris, a team from Western Washington University will be sorting and weighing collected material.

That cataloging effort is a step in the right direction, Miller said.

“We know that we get debris on our coast, but we don鈥檛 know what is a quote-unquote ‘normal’ load,” Miller said.

He hopes documentation will broaden awareness and knowledge of washed-up ocean garbage.

“The tsunami has highlighted the issue. On a global scale, it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of trash that鈥檚 out in the ocean and the amount that鈥檚 added to the ocean every year,” Miller said. “If this gives us more information about where it washes ashore we can focus [cleanup] investment accordingly.”

If you plan to spend the lead-up to Earth Day cleaning up the Washington coast, register and arrive early Saturday. No special tools are required, but volunteers may want to bring a sharp knife, hacksaw or small shovel to deal with tenacious debris items. Cleanup takes place at beaches along the coast, and some organizing groups host volunteer barbecues or chowder lunches afterward.

The annual event is a chance to help clean the coast and experience a connection with other nations around the Pacific Rim.

“Last year I can remember sitting down with a bag of plastic bottles, and I think I ended up counting eight different languages,” Miller said. “You find things from all over the world.”

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For more information, contact Miller at 360-417-6460 or immiller@uw.edu.