Upgrade to the Coastal Margin Observation and Prediction (CMOP) Program’s Estuary and Ocean Monitoring and Modeling Capacity

This project will support extreme weather focused analyzing and modeling capacity of the Columbia River estuary and coastal waters by CRITFCs Coastal Margin Observation and Prediction (CMOP) program. The CMOP Virtual Columbia River modeling program will be used to spatially extend observations throughout the estuary and to interpret the results in the context of climate change scenarios. The Virtual Columbia River model is an established tool for analyzing conditions in the Columbia River estuary under modern, historical, and future scenarios and is currently being improved (non-PCSRF funding) to better represent tidal wetlands, which provide habitat for resident juvenile salmon and food sources for migratory juvenile salmon. The program has been applied to questions of salmon habitat and survival through salmon habitat opportunity metrics, through individual based-models. CMOP will apply the program to updated climate change scenarios incorporating sea level rise, increased water temperature and modified hydrographs using established techniques and will explore the development of new methods of analysis. Model results will be incorporated into salmon lifecycle modeling.



The modeling work will also incorporate data from a continuous ocean acidification analysis system. A state-of-the-art instrument was recently purchased (non-PCSRF funding) and will be maintained through necessary staff hours for weekly maintenance, data assessment, and data interpretation from 2024-2028. Other data that will analyzed include eDNA data. Understanding environmental changes in estuary and ocean habitats is needed to protect salmon throughout their lifecycle, which is a critical component of the Columbia River Anadromous Fish Restoration Plan (https://plan.critfc.org).

Pacific salmon spend a large fraction of their lives in the ocean, a heterogeneous environment that is often described as a ‘black box’ where the distributions, diets, growth rates, and mortality rates of salmon are largely unknown (Weitkamp & Sturdevant, 2008). Poor ocean survival is thought to be a major cause of recent declines in Columbia River Chinook salmon populations, along with overharvest and the construction of dams (Hilborn, 2013). Furthermore, life cycle modeling predicts that future climate change may lead to a ~90% decline in marine life stage survival and ultimately cause the extinction of Snake River spring/summer Chinook populations by 2060 (Crozier et al., 2021). Monitoring and forecasting of physical, biogeochemical, and ecological properties of the estuary and ocean is fundamentally needed to understand the factors controlling salmon survival under current conditions and to predict changes with future climate scenarios.



This project benefits Columbia Basin salmon populations (including all ESA-listed populations) by increasing salmon-relevant climate change monitoring and modeling by the CMOP program. Operationalizing CMOP’s ocean acidification analysis system will produce new data on ocean acidification, a climate change process expected to negatively impact salmon by restructuring the ocean food web, reducing prey availability, and impairing olfactory systems. These ocean acidification data will be freely available in real-time, thus providing important information for regional marine resource managers. The eDNA pilot study will establish baseline ecological information that will allow ocean conditions and biogeochemical measurements from CMOP’s Point Adams station to be directly linked to semi-quantitative salmon abundance data and to the structure of the salmon food web, setting the stage for a climate change ecological monitoring program. CMOP staff will work with NOAA oceanographers to determine whether these new ocean acidification data and/or eDNA data can help inform the NOAA ‘stoplight’ chart indicators of salmon returns. Finally, improvements to CMOP’s modeling program will enable predictions of how climate change will impact habitats throughout the Columbia River estuary. This will constitute an important long-term salmon management tool by enabling effective target restoration and habitat protection efforts that will increase habitat for resident juvenile salmon and food supplies for migrating juvenile salmon.



Overall outcomes for this project include:

• Collection of continuous ocean acidification data starting in summer 2024. Data will be published on the CMOP website.

• Completion of eDNA pilot study, including collecting samples (2024-2025), running lab analyses (2025-2026), and analyzing data (2026-2028). Data analysis will be used to optimize methods and assess their utility, and to investigate how community composition, ecosystem structure, and/or salmon abundance vary with environmental conditions. Results will be discussed with CRITFC and the tribes so that management actions or revisions in return estimates can be conducted, as appropriate (by 2028).

• Predict changes in estuary salmon habitat using climate change scenarios incorporating sea level rise, increased water temperature and modified hydrographs (by 2027) and incorporate results into salmon lifecycle modeling (by 2028).