Research Technical Report

Ocean observing in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary: CalCOFI and the MBARI time series

Pennington, J.T., R. Michisaki, D. Johnston, and F.P. Chavez (March 2007)

A Report to the Sanctuary Integrated Monitoring Network (SIMoN)
Monterey Bay Sanctuary Foundation
Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary

INTRODUCTION

The Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary (MBNMS) encompasses much of the central California coast between San Francisco Bay and Point Conception. The oceanography of the MBNMS has received considerable study. Much of this work was begun under the auspices of the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI), originally established in 1949 to study the declining sardine fisheries off the North American west coast. Over the decades CalCOFI has evolved in size, focus and sponsorship. For the past two decades the Biological Oceanography Group at MBARI has conducted a focussed program of observation on CalCOFI Line 67, within and offshore of Monterey Bay in the MBNMS (Figure 1). This report introduces the CalCOFI and the MBARI programs as they relate to each other and oceanography within the MBNMS. Below we provide a brief review of MBNMS oceanography with summary graphs, and also provide introductory links to the extensive websites and detailed research papers of both programs. The document is intended to provide an entrance point for people interested in oceanography within the MBNMS, and may be expanded in future years as CalCOFI and MBARI's 'evolution' continue.

For full report see http://sanctuarymonitoring.org/regional_docs/monitoring_projects/100190_report.pdf