coasts – Neil Banas

“to see sandeel the way kittiwakes do”

Kittiwakes and many other UK seabirds have declined rapidly over several decades, alongside declines in the energy available in the ocean food chain that supports them. Agnes Olin’s PhD project (2018-2020) focused on sandeels as a link in this chain, looking upward to their spatial association with trends in kittiwake numbers, and downward to changes … Read more

I’m trying to write a book about plankton and fish

My first science zine. Covid-19 lockdown project, month 3. In retrospect I think it’s let down by the lettering, especially because I missed the opportunity to distinguish the two voices in it (it’s a collab with a then-4-year-old). But in true Prof. Dr. Style I’m leaving it on my website anyway. It’s folded from one … Read more

Early warning for Pseudo-nitzschia HABs on Pacific Northwest beaches: From plankton ecology to operational decision support

Certain species of the phytoplankton Pseudo-nitzschia (PN) produce a potent neurotoxin, domoic acid (DA), that bioaccumulates in shellfish, and can cause severe illness and death in humans. Past outbreaks have caused fisheries closures and millions of dollars of losses to crab and clam harvesters, and contributed to the death of many species of marine mammals. … Read more

Why is the Northwest coast so productive?

The Pacific Northwest coast is the most biologically productive region of the California Current upwelling system, despite the fact that the upwelling winds are much stronger farther south. How can this be?

Modeling Cascadia

The Cascadia model from the Univ of Washington Coastal Modeling Group is a realistic 3D model, implemented in ROMS, of the North American Pacific Northwest coast from mid-Oregon to mid-Vancouver Island, including the inland waters of the Salish Sea. It was developed as part of the NSF/NOAA PNWTOX (Pacific Northwest Toxins) project, based on previous … Read more

flowWeaver: Visualizing the circulation of the Pacific Northwest coast

flowWeaver is an interactive tool for exploring transport and connectivity patterns in high-resolution ocean models such as ROMS. The initial application (version 0.4.3) contains two weeks of Salish Sea and Pacific Northwest coastal circulation during summer 2005. The underlying ocean model is MoSSea (Modeling the Salish Sea). Pablo Otero has adapted flowWeaver for an operational … Read more

Gannets of Unst

Also, selected non-gannets of Unst.

Biophysical modeling of the Columbia River plume (2009)

The model As part of the NSF RISE (River Influences on Shelf Ecosystems) program, my collaborators and I coupled a four-box ecosystem model to a high-resolution hindcast of the Washington-Oregon coast, to examine Columbia River plume effects on coastal biological production. For more information, see Banas NS, Lessard E, Kudela R, MacCready P, Peterson T, … Read more