Salish Sea Oceanographic Modeling: Who Could Have Predicted?

Water quality and properties can be impacted by a wide array of sources, including climate change. Having a practical and accurate modeling tool for assessing such impacts is vital to making good ecosystem management decisions and future planning. On this episode, Dr. Tarang Khangaonkar, a coastal ocean modeler with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will tell us about the development of a high resolution 3-D finite volume hydrodynamic and transport model for the Pacific Northwest region of Puget Sound & Georgia Basin (the Salish Sea). This oceanographic model includes a comprehensive biogeochemical component and is now the “workhorse” for the analysis of water quality and circulation, nutrient pollution management, and response to sea level rise, climate change, and ocean acidification.