Observing the Ocean

From beachgoers to surfers to fishermen of all sorts to cargo ships to beachfront communities and municipal wastewater managers, we all need and use information about our local ocean waters. But where does it all come from?

The Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System (SCCOOS) – part of the national U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) – works to collect, integrate and deliver coastal and ocean observations in order to improve safety, enhance the economy, and protect the environment. SCCOOS serves a diverse stakeholder community of managers and planners, operational decision-makers, scientists, and the general public.

Join SCCOOS Executive Director Clarissa Anderson as she describes how SCCOOS technology and observational programs provide information critical to decision-making related to climate change, coastal hazards, marine ecosystems, fisheries, water quality, and marine operations.

Watch Research for Resilience on a Changing Planet – Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System.

Lakes Beneath Antarctic Ice: Deep, Dark and Mysterious

Where is one of the last places on earth you would expect to find a never-before known lake? Certainly, any of earth’s best-known deserts…the Sahara, Gobi, or Kalahari right?

Technically fitting the definition of a desert by standards of precipitation, Antarctica could also be on that well-known list of dry places.

But Antarctica has been imaged constantly for years across the entire visible and invisible spectrum and alas an unknown lake never popped up in any pictures until….who would think it…

In 2006, Helen Amanda Fricker was sitting at her desk studying new satellite data when she made a starting discovery – a set of active lakes that exist underneath the ice in Antarctica. Join Helen, a 25-year veteran of Antarctic ice sheet research, and learn about the discovery, exploration and drilling of these mysterious phenomena at the southern reaches of our planet.

Watch Lakes Beneath Antarctic Ice: Deep, Dark and Mysterious

From Stone Bowls to Unsuspected Superheroes

If rocks could talk – what could they tell us about the earth, history and maybe ourselves? Find out as collections manager Alex Hangsterfer and curator Richard Norris reveal the treasure trove of samples housed at Scripps. Hear some of the fascinating stories behind how these samples were collected and learn about the incredible variety of investigations that they enable – from plate tectonics to earthquakes to archaeology.

Watch Archives of the Scripps Geologic Collections: From Stone Bowls to Unsuspected Superheroes