"> Mixing and dilution controls on marine CO2 removal using alkalinity enhancement In the human body, dialysis is used to remove waste, a process that helps to reduce acidity in the blood. Scientists are using a similar process to withdraw seawater, remove acid, and return the high alkalinity water to the ocean. Ocean alkalinity enhancement is being […]
September 20, 2024
"> Publish or perish the thought: Orcas, seals, and a curious scientist
In 2022, more than three million scientific papers were published in about thirty thousand journals. This represented something like a 9% increase over the year before, and a 47% increase since 2016. “Academic publishing has a problem,” wrote Mark A. Hanson, the biologist at the University of Exeter who compiled these figures. “The last few […]
December 14, 2023
"> Survey looks at public knowledge of estuaries
“An estuary is a partially enclosed, coastal water body where freshwater from rivers and streams mixes with salt water from the ocean.” – U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Think of it as Puget Sound’s secret recipe. Fill a large glacier-carved basin with salt water from the ocean. Add fresh water from some adjoining rivers. Stir vigorously. […]
June 28, 2023
"> Examining the link between low summer stream flows and climate
A 2023 paper in the Journal of the American Water Resources Association says future low flows in Puget Sound streams could be lower than are projected by climate models that do not reliably account for multidecadal climate variation. The paper is co-authored by Nicholas Georgiadis and Joel Baker of the Puget Sound Institute. When rains […]
March 29, 2023
"> A tale of two islands
By Eric Wagner Science is hard, but coming up with a title for a scientific paper is harder. Exhibit A: the paper some colleagues and I recently published in Marine Ecology Progress Series. Originally I wanted to call it, “A Tale of Two Islands: Disparate Responses to a Marine Heatwave at Two Pacific Seabird Colonies.” […]
February 28, 2023
"> Findings and reports: February 2023
Salish Sea Model provides insights on circulation and residence times The amount of time water circulates and “resides” in Puget Sound is of intense interest to regulators and emergency response officials who want to understand how quickly wastewater is flushed out of Puget Sound and into the ocean. A paper in the journal Estuarine, Coastal […]
July 24, 2022
PSI monthly roundup: July 2022
VIEW THE FULLY FORMATTED NEWSLETTER in your browser Low-oxygen problems to be scrutinized in talks about research, modeling efforts For decades, researchers have been advancing their understanding of what causes the harmful and sometimes deadly low-oxygen problems afflicting some areas of Puget Sound. A series of 10 workshops on the subject will begin Tuesday, July […]
June 26, 2022
PSI monthly roundup: June 2022
VIEW THE FULLY FORMATTED NEWSLETTER in your browser Boundary spanning in Puget Sound Ecosystem-based management is often a large-scale collaborative effort involving many distinct groups. Boundary spanning organizations such as the Puget Sound Institute can help to support communication and policy development across institutions. In a new paper in the journal Environmental Science & Policy, we look […]
May 24, 2022
"> New paper describes PSI’s support of ecosystem-based management
Right now, researchers across Puget Sound are carefully measuring the salinity and temperature of the water, searching for harmful algal blooms and studying the feeding patterns of endangered orcas. They are testing the effects of ocean acidification, counting rockfish and checking the health of our declining kelp forests. Their scope includes salmon genetics and invasive […]
March 31, 2022
Recent papers from our group: 6PPD-Q updates and the ongoing hunt for contaminants
New papers this month 6PPD-Quinone: Revised Toxicity Assessment and Quantification with a Commercial Standard A 2022 article in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters revises previous findings on the environmental concentration and toxicity of 6PPD-Quinone, a novel compound lethal to coho salmon. The paper reports that 6PPD-Quinone, a chemical resulting from tire wear particles, […]