It wasn’t until the federal government took away several of my favorite fisheries, and access to my favorite spots, that I fully comprehended what I had previously taken for granted … The ocean is, or was once, a public trust … Read more
Tag: upwelling
Ask the Naturalist
It’s So Hot Everywhere Else — Why Not in the Bay Area?
Most of the state has set record temperatures this summer, but San Francisco has been cool and almost permanently cloudy because of its cool marine layer.
Ask the Naturalist
Ask The Naturalist: Why Are There So Many Birds On the Beach At One Time?
Head to the beach on one of these late summer days and you’re liable to come across a wonderful spectacle of nature: the feeding frenzy.
Winter Issue 2016
What Lurks Beneath
A small research team sets out in the search for a potential ocean killer. But in this unusual year, nature is not cooperating with her interrogators.
Fall Issue 2012
Will this year’s good ocean conditions last?
The first thing we heard was the exhalation of the animal,” says marine ecologist Kirsten Lindquist about the blue whale that surfaced close to R/V Fulmar during a research trip in late July. The trip was run by ACCESS, Applied … Read more
The Ocean
Charting Climate Change on the Central Coast
The Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, along with its sister sanctuaries to the north and south, Cordell Banks and Monterey Bay, are sentinels for the effects of global warming on ocean waters. And, as documented in a new report released, Central California’s offshore waters and coastline are already showing the effects of global warming.
Wildlife
Whales at the Farallon Islands
Picture hungry tourists swarming around an all-you-can-eat buffet. Only the tourists are 100 feet long and weigh almost 200,000 pounds. These are blue whales, the largest animals ever, and they’ve come to feast on some of the tiniest animals on the planet: millions upon millions of tiny shrimplike krill.
Winter Issue 2009
Taking the Heat
Though we may not be able to detect it on a day-to-day basis, climate change has come to the Bay Area and is already leaving its mark on local ecosystems: rising tides in the Bay, increasingly severe wildfires, acidification of ocean waters. While it may be too late to avoid global warming’s early stages, there is a lot we can do to both understand and mitigate its impacts on our landscapes and watersheds. With the support of world-class research institutions and an active environmental movement, Bay Area scientists are taking the lead in this crucial effort.
Fall Issue 2005
Grunion
Most summers, cold northerly winds off the Pacific Coast drive warm surface waters away from the shoreline and churn up colder, nutrient-rich waters from below. But this year, for reasons scientists don’t understand, that wind lacked its usual punch, resulting … Read more
Fall Issue 2005
Letter from the Publisher
As we enter the last weeks of the dry season and await the return of the rains that will put some life back into our parched hillsides, I’m still living off the remembered images of our incredible, extended spring, with … Read more
