The Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean, and Ecosystem Studies

CICOES Researcher Interviewed in Powder Magazine: What Does the “Super El Niño” Mean for Next Ski Season?

By Ian Greenwood, Powder Magazine

You’ve probably seen the news by now. Some monstrous thing called a “Super El Niño” is coming, and it’s going to wash every ski resort on the continent into the sea. 

Read the full story at Powder Magazine

UW researchers decipher beluga calls to bolster conservation efforts

By Gillian Dohrn, UW News
Alaska’s Cook Inlet was home to nearly 1,300 beluga whales in the late 1970s, but today the population hovers around 300. 

Read the full story at UW News

WA weather: ‘Very strong’ El Niño could come. But what does that mean?

If you thought this past winter was warm and dry, wait until El Niño comes to town. 

Read the full story at the Seattle Times

NOAA conducts first comprehensive aerial survey of ice seals in the Arctic

By NOAA Fisheries
Scientists flew more than 24,000 miles over sea ice to study the abundance and distribution of seals in the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort seas. 

Read the full story at NOAA Fisheries

New compendium opens access to 47 years of data on Alaska waters

By Heather Tabisola with contributions by Joe Selmont
Understanding how Alaska’s vast marine ecosystems are changing requires long, consistent records — something scientists have rarely had access to in one place. 

Read more

International survey counts bowhead and beluga whales in the Beaufort Sea

By NOAA Fisheries
In 2025, NOAA and the Alaska North Slope Borough successfully completed a survey to count bowhead and beluga whales in the U.S. 

Read the full story at NOAA Fisheries

Deep-sea earthquakes fuel huge plankton blooms in Antarctica

Eighteen hundred meters below Antarctica’s Southern Ocean, a volcanic ridge lined by hydrothermal vents burbles in the dark. 

Read the Full Story at Science.org

19th century corals unlock a new understanding of ocean acidification in the California Current and Salish Sea

By Joe Selmont, CICOES
For more than a century, a collection of orange cup coral skeletons bided their time in the Smithsonian’s archives. 

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The chilling effect of air pollution

By Gillian Dohrn, UW News
Earth is reflecting less sunlight, and absorbing more heat, than it did several decades ago. 

Read the full story at UW News

Former JISAO/CICOES intern wins MacArthur “Genius” Award

Ángel F. Adames Corraliza, a former JISAO/CICOES intern and an alumnus of the Atmospheric Sciences PhD program at the University of Washington, has been announced as a 2025 recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. 

Learn More at the MacArthur Foundation