California Current System

Assembled from 12 blocks · 1 evidence · 14 related

1. Story
2. The eastern boundary upwelling system running down the west coast of North America, and the summer feeding ground of the eastern North Pacific blue whales. Equatorward wind drives cold, nutrient-rich water to the surface along the coast; that production supports two krill species which are the main energy path from plankton to large predators. Blue whales arrive in late spring and early summer and feed into late autumn and early winter before moving south. They are not distributed evenly across it: the whales concentrate in cold, well-mixed water that upwells north of Point Conception and is then carried south, aggregating near San Miguel and Santa Rosa Islands over dense subsurface euphausiid layers.
3. Knowledge
4. California Current System
5. Connections
6. Eastern North Pacific Blue Whale Migration
7. Santa Barbara Channel
8. Seasonal Krill Aggregation
9. Satellite tagging of eastern North Pacific blue whales begins
10. Eastern North Pacific blue whales are estimated near carrying capacity
11. Evidence
12. Euphausia pacifica and Thysanoessa spinifera dominate the California Current preyscape; blue whales there feed on T. spinifera in shallow water under about 100 m and on E. pacifica at the shelf edge and offshore, preferentially targeting the larger, more lipid-rich T. spinifera. Blue whales arrive in late spring and early summer and feed until late autumn or early winter, concentrating in cold, well-mixed water upwelled north of Point Conception and advected south, near San Miguel and Santa Rosa Islands. V55 verification basis: retrieved in search summary attributed to this literature; the papers were not fetched.