News

9-23 April 2018 – Nearly 2 m of sand accreted over our pressure sensor buried in the mouth of Los Peñasquitos Lagoon, making it 3 m beneath ground level. After recovering the sensor in the surfzone and attempting to recover the lagoon mouth sensor, we had to resort to heavy machinery. Since the lagoon mouth was in the process of closing, recovery was a priority before the lagoon filled with water and the recovery became impossible. After a couple long days in the field, the pressure sensor was successfully recovered!

Thanks to Erik Jepsen/UC San Diego Publications for some amazing photographs taken on the first day (before the heavy machinery!). And of course thanks to the amazing field crew – could not have done it without the immense efforts of Brian, Kent, Greg, Lucian, Rob, and Bill!

04 April 2018 – Kristen Davis from UC Irvine is leading a big study of Newport Bay and the exchange with the coastal ocean. After a far too exciting day in the field (fear of lost instruments), all moorings were successfully recovered!

23 March 2018 – Giddings was invited to give a talk at the SDSU Computational Science Research Center (CSRC). Meetings with faculty and students during the visit highlighted the amazing work they are doing there and some potentials for future collaboration!

21 March 2018 – Harvey and Giddings participated in a workshop that was part of the Marshes on the Margins project. Marshes on the Margins is investigating how heavily altered Southern California estuaries will be impacted by sea level rise, particularly thinking towards restoration strategies. The workshop was focused on Los Peñasquitos Lagoon as a case study location. Harvey presented the data she has collected and work she has done towards understanding the system as part of her dissertation.

11 – 16 February 2018, Giddings lab members attended the 2018 Ocean Sciences Meeting in Portland, Oregon. Arzeno presented an excellent poster, and Harvey & Rodriguez presented talks on their most recent research projects.

During January 2018, we returned to the Seychelles to continue our research there as part of the Seychelles Local Ocean Modeling and Observations (SLOMO) project, a project which is part of the larger ONR funded NASCar project.

Click here for more photos and more about the trip!

05-09 November 2017, Maddie, Angelica, and Sarah attended the Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation 2017 conference in Providence Rhode Island. All group members presented talks on their research and we had multiple meetings with collaborators.

PhD student Angelica Rodriguez participated in the Scripps Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program as an undergraduate. This spurred her excitement about research and oceanography and led her to pursue a PhD at Scripps. Her SURF experience is highlighted in the UCSD news.

A paper in Oceanography was recently published highlighting the NASCar (North Arabian Sea Circulation – autonomous research) efforts. It includes a section on our NASCar Seychelles project – Seychelles Local Ocean Modeling and Observations (NASCar – SLOMO). And it highlights several of our photographs from the field, check out Isa, Maddie, Rich,Geno, and others on the cover page!

As one of five major ports in California, San Diego Bay is an important hub for industry and commerce, as well as the  U.S. Navy Pacific Fleet.  The bay consists of nearly 11,000 acres of marine habitat for a diverse aquatic population that helps sustain various fauna that use the bay for breeding, rearing young, and migratory respite.  Among the many organisms that call the bay home are sea turtles and the California Least Tern.  As anthropogenic activities alter the landscape, environmental stresses put on these organisms have changed their migration and foraging patterns.

A collaborative project between SIO and SPAWAR SSC-Pacific is currently underway to improve upon the current understanding of the mechanisms driving San Diego Bay environmental conditions and circulation patterns to asses their role in ecological function of the bay.    By assessing its modern hydrographic state, quantifying flow fields, and contextualizing the physical data with existing biological data, we hope to gain a better understanding of the system as a whole, which will ultimately allow for better stewardship of the resources that the bay provides.

 A key focus of this project is shoal-channel interaction during the time period when the south bay becomes consistently saltier than the ocean (i.e. summertime in San Diego).  This is intended to be a topic in Angelica’s dissertation and her summer internship with SPAWAR through the NREIP.