Los Angeles Times - 06.08.2019

B2 TUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2019 LATIMES.COM

BOOK NOW|855.890.5298 (7 a.m.-5 p.m. PT M-F) View all our expeditions atexpeditions.latimes.com

Explore Cities Time Has Not Forgotten

Journalist-led LA Times Expeditions take you deeper into your destination.

Insight is always on the itinerary.

ART & DESIGN

Design in the Desert

TheArchitectureofDubaiandAbuDhabi

Itinerary 7 Days

Departs Nov. 2, 2019

Departs Nov. 30, 2019

Travelers: 25

Dubaiisadreamdestinationforanyonewithan

appreciation for architecture. Visit this one-of-

a-kindcityonaneye-openingjourneythatonly

theLATimescandeliver.

FOOD & WELL-BEING

Villages and Vineyards

Lisbon to Rome aboard Oceania Riviera with Times food columnist

Lucas Kwan Peterson

Itinerary: 13 Days

Departs: Oct 16, 2020

Travelers: 100

Join us in October 2020 when we sail from Lisbon to Rome

aboard Riviera, an intimate and luxurious vessel with 800 crew

members serving just 1,250 guests. As we sail to some of the most

beautifulportsintheregion,you’llexperienceaselectionoftheship’s

culinary-focused excursions that will connect you to the local food scene

in the charming towns and villages where we’ll go ashore.

ART & DESIGN

Cuban Chrome

Itinerary 6 Days

Departs Nov. 6, 2019

Travelers: 25

Cuba’s antique cars survive through

the industriousness and passion of the

Cuban people. Meet members of A Lo Cubano

CarClubonatourledbyTimesautomotive

writer Charles Fleming.

ART & DESIGN

Explore the Venice Film

FestivalWith film critic Justin Chang

Itinerary: 7 Days

Departs: Aug 27, 2019

Travelers: 25

Every year, the oldest film festival in

theworldtakesovertheislandofLido

inVenice,Italy.Don’tmissyourchanceforan

all-access festival experience.

SAN DIEGO — In parts
of the California Current
this summer, the ocean was
clear, azure and almost
empty.
The high water clarity,
and low biological produc-
tivity, were some of the
defining features that struck
scientists returning from a
cruise with the California
Cooperative Oceanic Fish-
eries Investigation, or Cal-
COFI, program, a 70-year
study of West Coast waters.
Although the lack of life
sounds ominous, scientists
said it’s neither good, nor
bad, but an interesting ob-
servation that will add to
their knowledge of the Cali-
fornia Current.
“I have never seen the wa-
ter so blue in my life,” said
Dave Griffith, a fisheries bi-
ologist with the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration. “It was
beautiful. It looked like Lake
Tahoe out there. You don’t
have upwelling, which is
what brings the nutrients up
to the surface.”
A joint venture of the

Scripps Institution of

Oceanography, the National

Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration and the Cal-

ifornia Department of Fish

and Wildlife, CalCOFI was

launched in 1949 as a way to

understand the collapse of

the state’s once prolific sar-

dine industry.

It soon expanded to be-

come an exhaustive catalog

of fisheries, marine ecosys-

tems and water chemistry.

Its quarterly research

cruises capture a trove of

data about what the ocean is

like now, and how it com-

pares to conditions decades

ago.

The ocean serves as a

vast factory for manufactur-

ing life, with plankton nour-

ishing crustaceans and

small fish, which in turn sup-

port marine mammals,

seabirds, sharks and tuna.

This summer, that produc-

tion system seemed to be on

pause, researchers said.

“Productivity conditions

were very low, we weren’t

capturing high biomass in

any of our nets,” said Na-

talya Gallo, a postdoctoral

researcher with the pro-

gram, who volunteered on

the cruise. “Marine mammal

observations were low. That

makes sense, because you

have more animals when you

have more food.”

Without the churning of

nutrients from the ocean

floor, the system stalls and

ocean productivity — the

amount of life produced at

all those levels — declines.

That’s normal in the

summer, when warmer wa-

ter slows the upwelling of nu-

trients from the sea floor,

but researchers said ocean

productivity seemed lower

than usual, even for the sea-

son. The ability to observe,

measure and compare

ocean chemistry and biology

from year to year is the chief

benefit of CalCOFI, which

scientists said is the longest-

running set of marine data in

the world.

“There was very little

biomass at all, at all tropic

levels, from [plankton] all

the way up to marine mam-

mals,” said CalCOFI Direc-

tor Brice Semmens. “That is

an observation, and we can

put that in perspective in

our time series, and com-

pare it to all of the last 70

years.”

That’s why the 70-year

time series of the California

Current is so valuable, they

said. The ability to maintain

a running tally of ocean mea-

surements allows research-

ers to sort out whether an

event, such as this summer’s

biological scarcity, is a

short-time curiosity, or a

long-time trend.

Over a 16-day cruise of

the Southern California

Bight and California Cur-

rent, researchers took sam-

ples of water chemistry,

plankton, fish eggs, marine

mammal and seabird sight-

ings, and other variables, at

70 research stations in a grid

off the coast.

Scientists with Scripps,

in charge of oceanographic

testing, lowered a device fit-

ted with metal canisters that

measures water tempera-

ture and chemical proper-

ties at depth.

NOAA researchers study

fisheries by sampling fish

eggs and larvae, using four

different types of nets. This

time, it was slim pickings,

particularly in the sea be-

yond the California Current

— the open waters that sci-

entists refer to as an “ocean

desert.”

“This was exceptional,”

Griffith said. “We weren’t

seeing many eggs in the wa-

ter, which is not uncommon,

but there were areas where

we were not seeing anything.

It was pretty sparse.”

It’s unclear why the sam-

ples were so scanty because

the ocean’s physical condi-

tions didn’t seem out of the

norm, said Dan Schuller,

chief scientist for the cruise.

“There was nothing crazy

anomalous in any of the pa-

rameters we were looking

at,” he said. “Physical pa-

rameters — temperature,

salinity, oxygen, chlorophyll

— were pretty standard for a

Southern California trip.”

Researchers said they’ll

have to test their observa-

tions of low productivity

against the data they get

from analyzing their sam-

ples in the lab. It may turn

out that there was more

abundance of life than it ap-

peared at first glance. And

even if the ocean was less

productive this summer,

that could be part of the cy-

cles of boom and bust in

marine populations.

Warm waters in recent

years have suppressed some

fish populations, but also led

to favorable conditions for

other species popular with

fishermen.

“Fishes, especially near-

shore commercial fishes —

kelp bass, rock bass, the

marine species that every-

body likes to catch — they

can’t particularly pick up

and leave,” Semmens said.

Other migratory fish,

such as yellowfin and bluefin

tuna, are drawn to the

balmy, near-shore waters, to

the delight of San Diego fish-

ermen.

“Somewhat counterin-

tuitively, when the water’s

warm, and production is low,

you get some of the best

commercial fisheries, which

is really good for our econo-

my,” he said.

Although their biological

samples were low overall,

scientists did find creatures,

including small crustaceans

called copapods, as well as

euphausiids, or krill, a

shrimp-like crustacean.

They pulled up chaeto-

gnaths, a transparent pred-

atory worm that “should

probably be featured in the

next ‘Aliens’ movie,” Gallo

said.

They also found pyro-

somes, a bizarre, colonial or-

ganism made up of many

small tunicate worms,

stitched into a translucent

tube that can grow to an im-

posing 60 feet in length.

Gallo said CalCOFI re-

searchers found many

smaller ones in their bongo

nets — circular nylon nets

shaped like bongo drums.

The apparent abundance of

these otherworldly cre-

atures is exactly the sort of

thing that CalCOFI data can

put in perspective.

“Talking to some of the

NOAA fisheries scientists,

they said that pyrosomes

used to be quite rate, and

they didn’t see many,” Gallo

said. “So that’s one of the

things we can do with our

data, and compare to [data

from] the 1950s.”

Despite high waves,

strong winds, storms and

seasickness, the cruises are

indelible experiences for the

scientists on board. For

Gallo, the chance to help

write a chapter in a one of the

most enduring stories of

marine science was a profes-

sional milestone.

“I was out at sea with

NOAA scientists who have

been doing CalCOFI cruises

since before I was born,” she

said. “It’s almost three whole

[generations of scientific]

careers that have been dedi-

cated to this time series that

gives us this phenomenal

understanding of the dy-

namics of the ecosystem off

the West Coast, and how it

has changed in the past, and

how it may change in the fu-

ture with climate change.”

For Griffith, a veteran of

the CalCOFI cruises, the

hard work and long hours

are the price of perpetual

wonder.

“The ocean is a very pow-

erful thing,” he said. “It’s a

very resilient source. It’s just

a curiosity. We’ll see some-

thing different next year. We

see fish populations explode

and then collapse, but they

never go away.... It’s fascinat-

ing to watch.”

Brennan writes for the San

Diego Union-Tribune.

Sea life census posts low numbers

California’s latest

fisheries study shows

a lull in biological

productivity.

By Deborah
Sullivan Brennan

RESEARCHERSwith the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigation

deploy a device to measure water conditions from the vessel Bold Horizon.

Natalya Gallo

Tonight’s Mega Millions
Estimated jackpot:$55 million
Sales close at 7:45 p.m.

For Monday, Aug. 5, 2019

Fantasy Five: 2-16-23-24-

Daily Four: 3-9-8-

Daily Three (midday): 0-1-

Daily Three (evening): 6-9-

Daily Derby:
(4) Big Ben
(2) Lucky Star
(12) Lucky Charms
Race time: 1:46.

Results on the internet:
http://www.latimes.com/lottery
General information:
(800) 568-
(Results not available at this number)

Lottery results