Drops
Of
Water
Issue 40 June 2000
The first people to find errors in spelling or word structure receive a free map of the Chehalis watershed. Send us an e-mail note telling us about the error.
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Issue 40 June 2000 |
This newsletter appears monthly in 45,000 households throughout the watershed. Printing is done by The Chronicle, and distribution is by the Chronicle, the Olympia Daily Olympian, the Tenino Independent, the Rochester Sun News and the Aberdeen Daily World. This is an early edition available only to WWW users. Please send us your Drops of Water feedback.
The first people to find errors in spelling or word structure receive a free map of the Chehalis watershed. Send us an e-mail note telling us about the error. |
Special Thanks
Drops of Water is funded by organizations interested in the watershed.
These editions have been made possible by substantial grants from:
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Mike Kelly, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
For a long time I've had a certain little daydream whenever I see a newborn animal. I imagine that the animal gets about ten seconds right at birth during which it is fully aware of what and where it is.
After the ten seconds are up it completely forgets this realization and goes on about the business of being whatever animal it is. (Please keep in mind that this little fantasy is strictly for my entertainment.)
For example, I see a lot of newborn calves. They're often lying in the mud, all covered with goo, maybe being licked by momma cow. And they are thinking things like "Dang! I'm a cow." and "I hope I like cud." and "Too bad this isn't India."
At the birth of my daughter - in between thinking about the miracle of life, and loving my new family, and stuff like that - I wondered what she was thinking during her ten seconds of clarity. "Yes! This time I'm a human." and "Hmm...This doesn't appear to be a manger." and "If that's my dad, I hope I get my mom's teeth."
Anyway, I imagine that most animals are somewhat disappointed at not being humans, but some may be fairly pleased with their lot. Horses, for example, may realize that there's a good chance that they'll be well taken care of, that they'll live a fairly long life, and that they'll be intelligent...
and then there's that whole stud thing. A white shark might think, "OK, I'm not a human, but this could be interesting..." A laboratory rat would probably be a little bummed out. Don't worry little fella. There's always a chance that you'll be selected for an experiment in which they test how much Swiss cheese it takes to cause cancer.
And I'd really hate to realize that I was a salmon. Think about it. (Remember that you can think A LOT in ten seconds. How much goes through your mind from the time you drop the vase to the time it crashes on the floor?) Chances are that you push your way out of the gravel, think "Damn! I'm a salmon," and then get eaten by something. A salmon would know that it had already beaten the odds by surviving incubation in the gravel. In fact, a coho salmon, for example, has about a 70% chance of death even before it emerges from the gravel.
So, let's look more closely at the difficult life of a coho salmon. And I'm not even talking about modern difficulties like hydroelectric dams, toxic mill effluent, and impassable culverts. Let's maybe imagine a time and place where a salmon's only worry about humans comes from fishing and having people walk back and forth across the river on your back.
OK, you've beaten the odds just by getting out of the gravel. Now you have to find a place, or places, to live for more than a year before you head for the ocean. Plus you have to compete for that space with thousands of other 'disappointed for ten seconds' coho fry. Hopefully you feel fit - you're gonna need fitness. But what you really need right now is a quiet place to hang out and grab a bite to eat. If you are lucky, there will be a nice pool or backwater to live in for a while.
Early on, while the water is still high in the spring, there should be ample space. But as stream flows decrease in the summer, availability of suitable habitat also decreases. Most of you and your little buddies are going to die. You may be stranded in a drying up pool. As the water recedes from your hiding place, you may be spotted and consumed by a predator. The water may simply get too warm. You may not find enough to eat. There's a lot for a little salmon to worry about in those ten seconds.
OK, so you beat the odds over the summer. Now there are high flow freshets that come with storms in the fall. You could be swept out to sea before you're old enough to survive there. If you have luck and genetics on your side, you may be able to seek out and find a beaver pond, or quiet side channel to rear in over the winter. This is a great place to avoid the fury of the river. But it's also a good place for predators.
Right. Now you find yourself a year older, and it's getting time for you to undergo the physical changes that will allow you to survive in salt water. This process is called "smoltification." If you were a human, there would probably be some sort of celebration to commemorate your smoltification. There would be a party, some cake, some gifts probably, and maybe you could get a drivers licence. But you know, for ten full seconds, that you are just a little fish, and there is no cake for you.
So you manage to get out of the beaver pond, down the creek to the river, out through the estuary (where you spend a little time feeding and getting acclimated to salt water), and now you have to deal with the open ocean. But take heart, the odds of you even making it this far are about 91% in favor of death.
Ah, the ocean, the mother of us all, great blue jewel of the planet Earth, and another 90% chance of death for you. You face a year and a half of swimming around for thousands of miles searching for enough to eat, and avoiding those who would feed themselves on you. Just hope that it is not an El Nino year. An El Nino means less food and more predators. (Sorry little fishy, I just had to throw that in.)
Again, if you are really lucky, and in possession of the right genes passed down by the fittest/luckiest individuals from countless generations of your kind, you get to endure the most difficult part yet. The spawning run.
You get to swim all the way back to approximately where you were born. You will have to swim hard, or even throw yourself into the air each time you reach an obstacle. You may need to negotiate the large log jams and beaver dams that were so important to your early survival.
Your body undergoes bizarre changes, and gets beat all to heck as you make your final journey. And you don't even get to enjoy a snack on the way. (And for ten seconds you would know that a human would at least get one of those little bags of peanuts and crackers on a long trip like this. And to add insult to injury, those crackers would be SHAPED LIKE LITTLE FISH.) And, of course, there's always something or someone who would like to enjoy you as a snack.
Man! Let's add up the odds that you, as a little fish in my fantasy, would realize you were up against. Hmm... Well, the easiest way to look at it is to compare the number of fertilized eggs that your mom and dad produced - about 3000. Then consider that the goal is to have mom and dad replace themselves, which means two survive to spawn. That equals a 1:1500 chance. About a .06% survival rate, or a 99.94% chance of death.
Well let's say you beat the odds. You spawn successfully. Congratulations. You've done everything you can do to ensure that the species continues on for another generation.
Now if you were human, especially an American human, you could retire. With a little luck, you could spend a couple of decades or more enjoying the fruits of your labor. You could golf, or go look for pretty rocks, or GO FISHING. You could watch your offspring try and raise their own offspring and have a few good laughs about that.
But you are just a spawned out salmon. You are going to die really soon. You are pretty much nothing but living rot. But keep your chin up little buddy. Take consolation in the fact that your rotting flesh will provide nutrients for the next cycle of life.
This was written by the (grateful, but not necessarily proud, to be a human) human called Mike Kelly of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who can be reached at mike_kelly@fws.gov or at 360-753-9560.
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by Cecile Barnes of Toledo, WA
Twelve years at the edge of the Cowlitz
Observing its current's broad sweep
Reveal it has moods without number,
Now sluggish - now friendly - now deep.
What are you today, my river?
Shallow slacker of thirst of ambling herds of cattle?
Silent hider of "silvers" from eager fishing boatmen?
Glossy reflector of lights and stars on your midnight bosom?
Buoyant taxi for floating leaves and "cotton"'?
Endless highway for beaver and muskrat?
Quiet provider for stolid, standing herons?
Fickle tempter of swimmers with your deceptive icy waters?
Awesome magnet for dreamers thinking long thoughts o'er your curren?
Artful caretaker of fingerlings, wriggling inquisitively upward?
Lavish bearer of winged wisps for swooping swallows?
Taunting catcher of lures, and snarler of fishlines?
Sluggish cooler of feet of weary workhorses?
Kindly supplier of mud for nest-building swallows?
Capricious bearer of fragile canoes and kayaks?
Blithe floater of innertubes with shouting youth aboard?
Rapid absorber of white foam wakes from speeding boats?
Mystical playground for deftly diving ducks?
Smiling dimpler, as raindrops splatter your face?
Reluctant dining buffet for arrogant, clacking Kingfishers?
Tempting exhibitor of fish flirtatiously flopping?
Moody feeder of crabs for ducks and coons and mink?
Silent reflector of moonlight in wavering paths?
Able purveyor of flow from distant snow melts?
Mighty turner of wheels in concrete depths of reservoirs?
Reluctant receiver of volcanic debris from the Toutle?
Silent keeper of secrets lost in your depths long ago?
Sly robber of soil you pinch from your banks with your ripples?
Fervent fighter of tree roots vieing for power on the banksides?
Stormy heaver of logs and stumps when you're raging?
Fitful builder of sandbars and islands?
Raging lasher of bridges which dare span your stormy current?
Plundering wanderer through flood plains and valleys?
Solemn snatcher of bodies sought out by somber divers?
Patient carver of canyons, rocky and deep, at levels you choose?
From foggy lane to dazzling breadth -
From raging waves to current slow -
Now a promise, now a threat,
YOU DOMINATE THE VALLEY!
What are you today, my river?
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Water temperature is a controlling factor for aquatic life: it controls the rate of metabolic activities, reproductive activities and therefore, life cycles. Most aquatic organisms are cold blooded, which means they cannot regulate their own body temperatures. They assume a temperature similar to the surrounding water and carry out their metabolic activities within this range.
Cold blooded organisms are finely adapted to a specific temperature regime and deviations out of the usual range may cause problems. If stream temperatures increase, decrease, or fluctuate too widely, metabolic activities may speed up, slow down, malfunction, or stop altogether.
Temperature affects the concentration of dissolved oxygen in a water body. Some organisms, like salmonids, require high oxygen and thus can only live in environments that have cool temperatures and high oxygen concentrations. Temperature also influences the activity of toxic chemicals, parasites, diseases, and the sensitivity of aquatic organisms to the chemicals and diseases.
There are many factors which influence the temperature of stream water. As you might expect, temperature fluctuates seasonally, being cooler in winter and warmer in summer. Temperature may also fluctuate daily and hourly, especially in small streams in the summer, being cooler in the morning and warmer by the end of the day.
However, there are factors that can buffer the effect of summer heat and keep stream temperatures cool. For example, springs discharging cool groundwater into streams keep water temperatures down. The overhanging canopy of streamside vegetation which provides shade and thus keeps stream water cool.
Water temperature is also influenced by the quantity and velocity of stream flow. The sun has much less effect in warming the waters of streams with greater and swifter flows than of streams with smaller, slower flows.
In addition, human activities can alter the temperature regime of a stream. Water released into streams from power plants and industrial facilitiesties, and return flows from irrigation systems can increase the temperature of a stream significantly.
Reproduced, in part, from The Adopt-a-Stream Foundation, Streamkeeper's Field Guide
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Teri King, Washington Sea Grant Program
Septic system risers can help take the pain out of maintenance.
Most people understand that maintenance of on-site sewage systems is important. Many do not know that there are a few practical things that can be done to make monitoring and maintenance easier. Adding septic tank risers is one of these.
Risers are watertight tubes that extend the openings used for monitoring and maintenance to the ground surface. With a simple hex key, the riser cover can be removed to expose the system for inspection. Risers are generally made of plastic or fiberglass, fitted to the top of the septic tank over the main access or manhole. Smaller risers can also be installed above the inlet or outlet baffles in the tank.
Riser covers are available in green and tan locally. A cottage industry on the East Coast creates artwork on riser covers and sells them at a premium price. For me, I would probably leave them a solid color and place a potted plant, birdbath, or sundial over it depending on where they were located in my landscape.
So, the next time you have your tank inspected or pumped, consider having risers installed while the tank is uncovered. In the future it will save the back- ache or expense of having your tank uncovered every time you are required to inspect it. Talk to your septic tank pumper or a licensed installer to get installation cost estimates. This simple addition can save many hours of back straining work for future pumping or inspections.
Now on-line, Septic Sense, Scents, Cents Three Supreme Insights into the Fearless Flush at www.wsg.washington.edu under the New button.
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Paul Pickett, staff writer, South Sound Green Pages.
Picture one of your local creeks: China, Dillenbaugh, or Alder for example.
It's springtime - April or May - and the water is running clear and cool.
Leaves are budding out and the grass on the lawns is green and growing. This story begins with creeks just like ours, just a little to the north of us.
Spring brings a renewal of life. Spring also brings other rites of the season. Homeowners begin to mow their lawn. They buy lawn chemicals to kill weeds, crane flies, and other unattractive nuisances. And the home and garden stores roll out pallets of these lawn chemicals and have big sales.
Fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, poisons of many kinds, cheap, and available in huge quantities.
A few years back some people started to think about those chemical sales.
They looked in the clear streams and wondered if they were as pure as they looked. With all those sales at the stores, how much of those chemicals end up in the creeks? The U.S. Geological Survey, state Department of Ecology, and King County got together to get some answers. They picked ten urban and suburban watersheds in King County and collected water samples during the first runoff from spring showers. They analyzed the samples for 98 different pesticides. At the same time, they surveyed the largest lawn and garden stores in the watersheds to find out which chemicals sold the most.
The results were stunning. In a report published in April, 1999, the USGS detected and identified 23 pesticides in the streams. Five insecticides exceeded maximum levels set by the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering. Three of those pesticides - diazinon, carbaryl, and lindane, exceeded the U.S. EPA's thresholds for protecting aquatic life.
Diazinon was by far the worst offender.
When the water sample results were compared to store sales, striking patterns emerged. Homeowners purchase and apply four of the five pesticides found above the NAS/NAE maximum levels. King County residents purchase diazinon more frequently than any other pesticide. Almost half of the pesticides detected are only available to licensed applicators, although all but one of those were found at levels considered to be "safe." What do these results mean? Although none of the chemicals were found in the water at levels dangerous to human health, five chemicals were at levels toxic to aquatic life. Also, recent studies found that pesticides ruin salmon's sense of smell, effectively "blinding" them from finding spawning grounds. So despite the lack of a "smoking gun," the implications are chilling. The "bullets" are now clear to be seen, and the salmon are in decline - these results demand action.
Fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, poisons of many kinds, cheap, and available in huge quantities. |
These problems are not unique to King County. In 1998 Ecology staff sampled six streams and storm drains in the Lake Whatcom watershed. Like the USGS study, they sampled during spring rains for a wide suite of pesticides, and they also surveyed stores for the most commonly sold chemicals.
Their findings were remarkably similar. Fifteen pesticides were detected in water samples, and three exceeded criteria to protect aquatic life. The worst offender was again diazinon, and this time chlorpyrifos and malathion were also at toxic levels. Six of the pesticides found in the water, including the three most toxic, were commonly listed ingredients of products sold in Bellingham retail stores.
Since the discovery of these invisible poisons in the creeks, some actions are being taken. At the local level, King and Whatcom counties have pursued campaigns to educate homeowners about the proper application of pesticides.
The Washington Toxics Coalition is pushing for local policy changes and state legislation. It is also educating homeowners. Some state grants are helping with this effort.
This may help, but it may not help enough. If these poisons have been found so far in every urban area where anyone has looked, they may be polluting streams in other developed areas of the state. Also, studies have found that even when pesticide labels are followed correctly, toxic levels are still sometimes found in downstream creeks.
It may be a long time before we see an adequate response at the state level.
Events over the last decade suggest that the legislature is often strongly influenced by the lawn chemicals industry. The state Department of Agriculture has jurisdiction over pesticides, while Ecology has the responsibility for water quality. While Agriculture and Ecology do talk to each other, they appear to have no formal relationship to address these issues. Only recently have the two agencies begun a discussion of Endangered Species Act requirements, mainly because federal agencies have refused to include pesticides in their new rules.
Agriculture has the power to write new rules for pesticides and to enforce the rules. However, regulating homeowner use is very difficult. Occasionally Agriculture has prosecuted homeowners for not using pesticides according to the label requirements, but it's difficult to prove, and therefore rare.
| So as spring arrives, when you look at your local creeks, think about what you don't see. These silent killers may be destroying the life of our streams. |
Also, Agriculture finds itself in a political bind between supporters and critics of pesticide use.
Ecology finds itself in a similar bind. Recent budget cuts eliminated several positions that addressed pesticide issues, and there is currently no single point of contact. Staff working on pesticides are dispersed around the agency, with no formal coordination mechanism. Like Agriculture, Ecology's management has also shown signs that it feels the heat from the chemical industry and other pesticide supporters. But there is hope that the recent study results may begin to turn the tide. Violations of criteria trigger federal Clean Water Act requirements, and impacts on endangered species may also force action. In addition, EPA is conducting a national review of diazinon and chlorpyrifos, which provide an opportunity to ratchet up pesticide regulations.
So as spring arrives, when you look at your local creeks, think about what you don't see. These silent killers may be destroying the life of our streams. We should take action now to sample our waters, educate homeowners, promote Integrated Pest Management, and restrict access to dangerous poisons. If this story disturbs you, then contact your county, your state agencies, and your legislators. It's time to stop the poisoning and heal our streams.
Reprinted with permission from SPEECH. This article first appeared in the February 2000 edition of South Sound Green Pages.
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By Teri King, Washington Sea Grant Program
Your freshly purchased or captured fish and shellfish will arrive home in excellent condition if you remember that seafood spoils very rapidly at room temperatures.
The colder seafood is kept, the longer they will stay fresh. When you go to the market or to the shore to pick up seafood, don't forget to bring your ice chest with you. As soon as you reach the car, pack your fish and shellfish products into an ice chest. Flaked, chipped, or crushed ice is easiest to handle, but cubed ice or ice packs will work in a pinch. Some companies will provide you with free ice to transport your purchase home with.
Pour 3 to 4 inches of ice into the bottom of an ice chest. On this ice layer, place your fish either whole or in pieces. Fill the belly cavity of fishes with ice. Then cover each fish with ice, alternating layers of ice and fish. For whole cleaned shellfish, place them on top of the ice. For shellfish that has been shucked, bury the container or bag of shucked product in the ice.
It's important to keep fish cold all the way home. Because temperatures inside trunks of automobiles are high enough to melt ice quickly, you should stop every hour to drain melted ice. Then add sufficient ice to keep fish covered and separated. By following this procedure, you can keep fish in excellent condition two to three days. For longer periods, wrap the fish with paper and pack with dry ice. Caution: Dry ice gives off carbon dioxide which will replace oxygen inside your car even if dry ice is in the trunk. Be sure to keep windows open for ventilation.
By following these simple procedures, you will have the basic ingredients for an outstanding seafood meal. And you will agree that your catch or purchase is worth the cost of ice and an inexpensive styrofoam chest.
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Janet Strong, Chehalis River Basin Land Trust
One of my favorite wetlands is a well-hidden little beaver pond constructed many years ago along a tiny stream. The clever beaver used discarded cedar spaults to shore up his or her handiwork. The dam engineer has departed and the pond has partially filled in with grasses and shrubs. Until last winter a huge old cottonwood snag stood in the middle, containing a large cavity which may have been a nest hole for the pair of pileated woodpeckers living in the area. The winter storms brought it down and, sadly, there are no other snags in the vicinity large enough to house the woodpecker family.
Flanking the old pond are a grove of large cedars on the west, an impenetrable thicket on the north and a mixed forest on the other two sides.
All this variety makes for a great place to sit quietly and enjoy the birds and other forest creatures.
I didn't always like swamps and marshes. When I was kid growing up in Maryland I loved to explore the woods around my house. Sometimes my best friend and I would hop on our bikes and ride farther out into the country, hide our bikes and follow a creek through the woods. Since we lived in a swampy area, we were always coming to mucky places we couldn't cross. They were full of plants with thorns, bugs that bit and old rotten logs that collapsed when you stood on them. We had to be on the lookout for snakes and spiders and other scary, slimy things. And our mothers didn't think much of our muddy condition when we finally returned home.
Later, in Michigan, I also spent whatever time I could wandering around in the woods. Lots of swamps and marshes there. Each and every one of them was guarded by whole platoons of Marine Corps mosquitoes which gave no quarter and took no prisoners.
By the time I moved to Pennsylvania I began to notice some interesting things about these mucky places I had hated as a child. For one thing they were teeming with life and not just insect life. Those shrubby, messy thickets growing in wet spots were like an inter-species airport for songbirds, just vibrating with tiny flying machines. With free range of the entire forest, where did they hang out? Not in the pretty pine trees but in the scrubby bushes. Then I noticed that things grew fantastically well in the wet mucky soil. Even in the middle of a hot summer, that soil was moist and the plants were bursting with flowers, fruits and seeds. Insects were everywhere for the snatching. Obviously the birds knew a great restaurant when they saw one. The rest of the forest was not without birds, but the concentration was much lower.
By the time I moved to Washington I was fascinated by wetlands (swamps, marshes and bogs). Not only are they meccas for bird life, especially if they have some open water, but a whole host of other animals prefer to spend more time there. The ever present moisture seems to even out temperatures so that wetlands are cooler in the hot summer and warmer in the cold winter. Deer and elk "thermo-regulate" by hanging out in these places in very hot or very cold weather.
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Professor Robert Francis, School of Fisheries
In some years, the ocean seems filled with salmon. In others, the fishing is so poor that commercial harvesters lack the incentive to set their nets.
Why? In previous decades, scientists have studied the effects of overfishing and pollution on ocean systems to explain these wildly fluctuating cycles of boom or bust.
Today, they're investigating another possibility -- natural climate variability and human-induced climate change.
''It's extremely difficult to separate natural causes from the human factors behind fisheries declines,'' says Robert Francis, a professor with the University of Washington's School of Fisheries. ''That's because our actions can influence global weather conditions, which in turn shape such things as nutrient cycles and water currents -- two of the many components of the ocean food web.''
There's strong evidence that ocean conditions shifted dramatically in the mid-1970s, he explains. Sea surface temperatures off the Washington coast became warmer. The distribution and abundance of plankton on which juvenile salmon and other fish feed also changed.
Warmer water temperatures also allowed populations of ocean predators to extend their ranges farther north, putting additional pressure on young salmon stocks. As a result of these and other climate-driven phenomena, salmon production in the Northwest was unusually poor for several successive years.
Francis and staff of the National Marine Fisheries Service, U.S. Forest Service and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife are currently coupling Global Climate Models (or GCMs) with population models for coho salmon runs in coastal Oregon.
''We picked a region and a species where much was already known and where there were existing freshwater and oceanic habitat models,'' he explains. ''The choice of coho salmon made good sense, since these fish spend equal time -- about 11/2 years -- in both environments.''
The Human Influence
The multi-agency team now hopes to couple land use forecasts with climate forecasts to get some sense of how human activity and natural cycles, in particular atmospheric warming, could affect the coastal environment. Predicting the effects of climate change will be no easy feat. Rather, it will require scientists to look ahead, decades and, possibly, centuries into the future.
''If our climate forecasts prove accurate -- and it appears that they will -- we'll need to be prepared to respond to the upcoming shifts in natural resource systems,'' Francis says.
A classic example is water resources in the Pacific Northwest.
''If things go in the direction we think they will, and it gets warmer and drier throughout Washington, we're going to have significant water shortages,'' Francis notes. ''We'll need to make certain policy decisions about water use, in much the same way as our fisheries managers will be forced to plan and decide.''
Historically, resource decisions have been made on a year-to-year basis, according to Francis.
''Our understanding of natural cycles and human influences may force us to take a little more long-term look, to develop some meaningful scenarios of what is likely to happen to the salmon fishery and other enterprises over the next several decades to a century,'' he concludes.
This was certainly not the first time in world history that such a shift has occurred, according to Francis. Nor is it likely that things will remain the same in the ocean or on land for long.
With Washington Sea Grant funding, Diego Holmgren, a doctoral candidate in the School of Fisheries, and Francis studied core samples from sediments off the west coast of Vancouver Island. Hidden at various depths in these samples were deposits of fossilized fish scales. By sorting and counting the scales in these deposits, they saw recurring cycles of boom and bust for Pacific herring and sardine populations over a span of a thousand years.
Predicting Change Similar signs of climatic upheaval can be seen in tree rings, shellfish fossils and layers of glacial ice. Having established the historic context for such phenomena, Francis and other scientists are now redirecting their research in an attempt to predict the effects of future climate change.
''We're starting with salmon populations, using complex GCMs, coupled with salmon life history models, to develop possible scenarios about the state of this resource in the next century,'' Francis says.
''We've found that GCMs can give significant insights,'' he offers. ''They afford the opportunity to think fairly systematically about what the impacts of climate change might be.''
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