Environmental Impacts

CalCOFI was founded partly on the idea that sardine populations off the coast of California were greatly affected by environmental impacts. The region of interest, which can be seen in the following animation, is an area of great marine productivity for a variety of reasons. The California Current runs south along the coast, carrying cold waters from the Arctic region down to the equator. Additionally, off shore winds drive upwelling, the process by which warm upper ocean layers are pushed towards ocean basins and cold water from the depths rises up to replace it. This water is richer in nutrients than the warmer surface waters and is a major driver of biological productivity in the region. The following figure shows the locations of sardine larvae from 1951 to 2019, as well as the amount of larva caught during the cruises.

fig = px.scatter_mapbox(larva, lat='latitude', lon='longitude', hover_name='Sardinops.sagax', zoom = 6, animation_frame='year', center = dict(lat=33, lon= -121), opacity = 1, size = 'sardine_size', color = 'Sardinops.sagax', color_continuous_scale= px.colors.sequential.BuPu, range_color=(0, 6100))


fig.update_layout(
    mapbox_style="white-bg",
    mapbox_layers=[
        {
            "below": 'traces',
            "sourcetype": "raster",
            "sourceattribution": "United States Geological Survey",
            "source": [
                "https://basemap.nationalmap.gov/arcgis/rest/services/USGSImageryOnly/MapServer/tile/{z}/{y}/{x}"
            ]
        }
      ])
fig.update_layout(margin={"r":0,"t":0,"l":0,"b":0})


fig.show()