As part of a project to assess marsh response to human alterations, over the past few weeks we have deployed a series of moorings in the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge. This project is in collaboration with the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge, Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach, and Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southwest. Doing all of this work socially … Read More

“Seasonal Changes in Structure and Dynamics in an Urbanized Salt Wedge Estuary” by Maggie McKeon, Alex Horner-Devine, and Sarah Giddings was just published in Estuaries & Coasts. This paper describes hydrographic measurements of a salt-wedge estuary, the Duwamish River Estuary, spanning a 20-fold range in seasonal discharge. The tidal dynamics are well explained by two-layer hydraulic theory, and result in … Read More

“Mechanisms of Mid- to Outer-Shelf Transport of Shoreline-Released Tracers” was just released in the Journal of Physical Oceanography. This paper, led by postdoc Xiaodong Wu, focuses on exchange of a shore-line released tracer from the mid- to outer-shelf. While along-shelf flows are primarily driven by obliquely incident waves, cross-shore flows are are driven by both wind-driven Ekman transport and submesoscale … Read More

“Cross‐Shore Structure of Tidally‐Driven Alongshore Flow over Rough Bathymetry” manuscript published on-line in Journal of Geophysical Research, Oceans! This paper, led by former graduate student Andre Amador, uses autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) data to examine the cross-shore structure of along-shore flow over a coral reef. Transport of heat, mass, and momentum over the inner-shelf impacts coastal distributions of larvae, nutrients, … Read More

16 June 2020. Sarah presented a lightning talk on “Red-tide impacts inside estuaries and on oysters” at the SCCOOS red-tide mini symposium. It was a very interesting event to attend to learn the various parameters leading up to the massive red-tide and the significant biogeochemical and biological impacts. Lots more information can be found at the SCCOOS red-tide bulletin.

05 June 2020. Isa successfully defended her PhD remotely via zoom. All in spite of covid19 restrictions and significant social unrest. Her presentation was excellent and the attendance via zoom was phenomenal – over 100 attendees from around the world – a testament to her impressive scientific accomplishments and extended family and friend support network. She will be continuing to … Read More

08-18 May 2020. A massive red-tide in our region prompted our lab to conduct rapid-response field work, applying for and gaining permissions to conduct limited field equipment swaps during these severely restricted covid19 times. We practiced careful social distancing and sanitizing measures throughout. We were able to swap our biosensor moorings, download the data, and re-deploy to capture the start … Read More

25 March 2020 – Sarah participated as a panel member in the MPOWIR webinar discussion on Leading People and Projects. MPOWIR = Mentoring Physical Oceanography Women to Increase Retention is a community-based program providing mentoring and workshops for junior physical oceanographers (late graduate school through early career) aiming to reduce barriers to career development for all junior physical oceanography scientists.

31 January – 03 March 2020 Duncan led an intensive field experiment to look at IG wave propagation into Los Peñasquitos Lagoon. He deployed a large suite of instruments within a small area near the lagoon mouth to assess wave propagation and influences on other parameters of interest.

17-21 February 2020. All members of the Giddings lab attended and presented at the 2020 Ocean Sciences Meeting, held in our hometown of San Diego! Sarah was a session chair of the Dynamics of Buoyancy-Driven Flows in Estuaries, Continental Shelves, and Polar Seas session and an invited speaker for a Town Hall on US/Mexico border pollution issues IOOS/SCCOOS partnerships. Maddie, … Read More