Scripps wins $5M grant to advance ocean research
Lily Leung
San Diego Union-Tribune
09/24/2010
The Scripps Institution of Oceanography has won more than $5 million in grant money to bolster research on how climate change affects ocean water off the state's coast.
Renewed funding from the National Science Foundation will allow Scripps scientists to continue studying how food systems and fisheries are impacted by biological and physical shifts of the California Current.
The California Current Ecosystem program, launched in 2004, is entering its second phase of research. With an expanded staff, Scripps hopes to develop "ecosystem forecast models" to further explain the dynamics of the California Current. Scripps is part of the University of California San Diego in La Jolla.
The project is now staffed with a "dream team" of ecologists, molecular biologists, marine chemists and ocean modelers, said Mark Ohman, the project's leading scientist.
"This is a highly talented, energetic and creative group of people who are pushing the science forward," he said.
Researchers also have been analyzing the effects of climate change on upwellings, or areas of rising seawater.
