Salmon in Love
Californians are keenly interested in protecting and enhancing salmon populations. Who wouldn't be interested in that? Their presence generally represents a healthy ecosystem.
Unfortunately the efforts to protect salmon may be terribly misguided. Often conservation groups criticize water export pumps at the southern end of the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta as the culprit when salmon populations decline. Their remedy, of course, is to shut down the pumps in order to protect the fish.
But scientific evidence is showing us that salmon populations may not be declining, they might just be shifting from the Pacific Northwest to the Gulf of Alaska and back, depending on ocean conditions. According to data published by Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Oregon State University and the University of Washington, sea temperatures have a lot to do with where the salmon are.
JPL satellites have been monitoring sea levels since 1992 and there is a strong correlation with high sea levels and increasingocean temperatures. Remember high school physics? When temperature rises, volume increases (or pressure increases if volume remains constant). Well, a phenomenon known as Pacific Decadal Oscillation, or PDO, has been identified by ocean temperatures that shift back and forth between Indonesia and the Americas. It is a cycle that lasts as long as 30 years and guess what? When warmer water is off the coasts of the Americas, cooler water is puhed north and salmon are more prevalent in the Gulf of Alaska. When cooler water is off the Americas, salmon are found in greater numbers there rather than up north near Alaska.
This has been documented by salmon catch records since 1915. When it's good in Alaska it is often terrible on the Columbia River. And when it's good on the Columbia, Alaskan fishermen are coming up empty-handed.
So why isn't anyone talking about PDO when salmon are declining on the tributaries that feed the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta? Because its easier to force regulators to change water operations in the Delta than it is to force Mother Nature to cool her jets.
Unfortunately the efforts to protect salmon may be terribly misguided. Often conservation groups criticize water export pumps at the southern end of the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta as the culprit when salmon populations decline. Their remedy, of course, is to shut down the pumps in order to protect the fish.
But scientific evidence is showing us that salmon populations may not be declining, they might just be shifting from the Pacific Northwest to the Gulf of Alaska and back, depending on ocean conditions. According to data published by Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Oregon State University and the University of Washington, sea temperatures have a lot to do with where the salmon are.
JPL satellites have been monitoring sea levels since 1992 and there is a strong correlation with high sea levels and increasingocean temperatures. Remember high school physics? When temperature rises, volume increases (or pressure increases if volume remains constant). Well, a phenomenon known as Pacific Decadal Oscillation, or PDO, has been identified by ocean temperatures that shift back and forth between Indonesia and the Americas. It is a cycle that lasts as long as 30 years and guess what? When warmer water is off the coasts of the Americas, cooler water is puhed north and salmon are more prevalent in the Gulf of Alaska. When cooler water is off the Americas, salmon are found in greater numbers there rather than up north near Alaska.
This has been documented by salmon catch records since 1915. When it's good in Alaska it is often terrible on the Columbia River. And when it's good on the Columbia, Alaskan fishermen are coming up empty-handed.
So why isn't anyone talking about PDO when salmon are declining on the tributaries that feed the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta? Because its easier to force regulators to change water operations in the Delta than it is to force Mother Nature to cool her jets.
posted by California Farm Water Coalition at 3:36 PM
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