Over the past fifteen years we have demonstrated that the distribution, abundance, and survival of juvenile Columbia River salmon in the northern California Current vary synchronously with variable ocean conditions.  Because of this new understanding, we have been able to develop a suite of physical, biological and ecological indicators of ocean conditions that are useful predictors of salmon survival and which are posted to our web-site semi-annually. These efforts now provide outlooks on returns one to two years in advance for coho and spring Chinook salmon. We continue to demonstrate that efforts by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council (NWPCC) and BPA to restore, rehabilitate, and enhance salmon production must be evaluated in terms of ocean conditions.

The primary goal of our work is to further understand how the ocean and Columbia River (CR) plume conditions affect juvenile salmonids, then predict, in a quantitative rather than qualitative manner, how changing ocean conditions will affect salmonid growth and survival and subsequent adult returns.  From this research we can recommend ways to link management actions to various river, plume and ocean conditions for effective management of salmon using an ecosystem approach.

Given the complexity of interactions between climate, ocean, and plume conditions, none of the years examined to date have provided a similar suite of conditions.  It is clear that we have not yet observed all possible or repeated environmental/oceanographic ecosystem combinations that support juvenile salmon.  Because of impending climate change impacts, a longer time series is needed for climate-salmon studies to provide sufficient statistical power to discern the key climate, ocean, and ecological factors that modulate salmon survival in the sea.  A longer time series, the limit of which remains unclear at this time, will improve our ability to help managers of the Columbia River Basin develop longer range assessments of climate change impacts on use of hatchery, habitat restoration, and altering river flows to restore endangered salmon populations.

Our efforts are built around the core hypothesis that early ocean growth and survival of Columbia River juvenile Chinook and coho salmon are determined through both bottom-up and top-down processes associated with productivity of coastal waters and the Columbia River plume habitat during spring and summer.  Through correlation analysis we will continue to validate current relationships described in our Summary of Findings to Date as well as further develop metrics relating to smolt-to-adult survival of specific populations of Columbia River Chinook and coho salmon with food distribution, abundance and quality, and distribution and abundance of potential predators.  In addition, we will link performance indices of salmon condition to indices of food quantity and quality within specific regions of the coastal ocean.  Statistical power is provided by generating a time series of sufficient duration that include the inevitable variability provided by the ocean environment.