Recent research highlights how our shifting climate triggers increasingly extreme conditions. In the North Pacific, this involves regime shifts, El Niño-driven events, and marine heatwaves—all spurring bottom-up changes in ecosystem productivity and structure. As long-lived, highly visible top predators, seabirds provide clear indicators of these shifts. Citizen science has emerged as a valuable avenue for public engagement in data collection and research. The Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST) has documented changing seabird mortality—capturing shifts in frequency, magnitude, taxonomic breadth, and causality through systematic beached bird surveys. These findings offer compelling evidence of upper trophic responses to a warming climate, while also illustrating how motivated community members can become place-based experts and effective champions for science.

Julia Parrish is the Lowell A. and Frankie L. Wakefield Professor of Ocean Fishery Sciences and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at College of the Environment, University of Washington.

The talk is sponsored by the Friends of Hopkins.  It is free and open to the public.  Registration is only required if attending online instead of in person.