Ocean Indicators for Pacific Ocean Salmon Unsettled for 2024
Biologists with NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center say ocean indicators off the central Oregon coast are decidedly mixed for the coming year, as El Nino develops at the equator, with positive and negative indicators in local waters for emerging salmon.
Ocean indicators for juvenile salmon survival that were posted online in early January reflect a rapidly changing ocean that’s tough to predict, they said.
As of Jan. 11, researchers said the overall message was that the system is unsettled, so at that point all they could do was watch and wait.
The team from the research station regularly monitors ocean conditions along the Newport Hydrographic Line, one of the best records of ocean chance on the West Coast. Scientists have surveyed the line twice monthly, weather permit...