Jay Odell, a marine science and policy expert with over 30 years of experience working to advance sustainable fisheries and ocean health, has joined the Urban Coast Institute (UCI) as a fisheries and ocean conservation fellow. In this role, Odell will conduct policy research on climate change impacts to ocean ecosystems and fisheries management systems and will engage government agencies and ocean-dependent user groups.

Odell previously worked as a collaborator with the UCI to help advance the first-ever Regional Ocean Action Plan in the Mid-Atlantic. He and UCI Director Tony MacDonald also co-led the team that created and launched the Mid-Atlantic Ocean Data Portal in 2010. The Portal, which is available to the public, includes over 6,000 interactive maps showing offshore wind areas and infrastructure, shipping vessel traffic patterns, marine life distributions, commercial fishing grounds and more. Today, UCI Communications Director Karl Vilacoba manages the Portal project team on behalf of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council on the Ocean (MARCO). Odell will join the Portal team to improve data related to commercial and recreational fishing activity and marine life in the region.

Odell most recently worked at The Nature Conservancy, where he served in various positions over the course of 20 years leading large-scale habitat restoration, marine spatial planning, and marine conservation programs at state, regional and national scales. He previously spent 13 years with the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife on work including stock assessment, harvest management, and leading co-management activity with Treaty Tribes to develop and implement fishery management plans.

The UCI honored Odell and representatives of the Garden State Seafood Association and Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council with Champion of the Ocean awards in 2015 for their roles in the designation of the 38,0000-square-mile Frank R. Lautenberg Deep-Sea Coral Protection Area. He will be focused on supporting new partnerships to achieve similar ‘win-win’ ocean management solutions in his new role with the UCI.

“We can use the same general problem-solving approach to address several different types of urgent ocean conservation challenges – habitat conservation, bycatch reduction, and accommodation of newer ocean uses like offshore wind power, to name a few,” Odell said. “When we gather ocean users and managers in review and open dialogue around trusted, shared information, good things tend to happen. The UCI is well-positioned to serve as an ocean solutions lab that can examine charged issues in coordination with state and federal agencies, but outside of the official government process, to help deconflict issues and identify consensus paths forward.” 

Odell received a B.S. in biology from The Evergreen State College in 1986 and a M.S. in wildlife and fisheries conservation from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 2003. His work will be funded by UCI external grants and contracts.

*Update: Deadline extended to April 7*

The Urban Coast Institute (UCI) invites Monmouth University undergraduate and graduate students of all majors to apply for 2023 Heidi Lynn Sculthorpe Scholars Summer Research Grants. The deadline for submissions is April 7.

Funding is available for projects proposed by students that will be completed under the guidance of a faculty mentor, or projects proposed by a faculty member that will be completed with the support of student researchers. All proposals relevant to the mission of the UCI will be considered. Some specific topics of interest to the UCI include:

• Enhancing consideration for social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion as coastal communities adjust to a changing climate
• Impacts of sea level rise on coastal environments and communities
• Environmental and social issues related to offshore wind development
• Social impacts of coastal disasters
• Coastal ecosystem adaptation planning
• Financing resilience
• The blue economy and blue tech
• Marine and environmental arts and humanities
• Furthering the UN Decade of the Ocean Sustainable Development Goals at the international, national and local levels
• Urban ocean issues and opportunities
• Sustainable fisheries in a changing climate

Proposals must be submitted online through the Heidi Lynn Sculthorpe Scholars Summer Research Grants application site (Monmouth student/staff login credentials required). Science students should apply for summer research support through the School of Science Summer Research Program.

For more details and guidance, see application page or contact UCI Associate Director Tom Herrington (therring@monmouth.edu).

The Urban Coast Institute’s signature annual event, the Future of the Ocean Symposium and Champion of the Ocean Awards reception, will return on April 13. Visit the event page for full details.

This year’s symposium will have a theme of “Catalyzing Innovation and Action for Oceans and Climate.” The symposium will be held at Monmouth University’s Great Hall Auditorium beginning at 4 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

The Champion of the Ocean Awards cocktail reception will immediately follow the symposium at the Great Hall Versailles and Pompeii Rooms at 6 p.m. Tickets are required for the reception. Visit the event page for tickets and sponsorship opportunities.

Urban Coast Institute Communications Director Karl Vilacoba worked with members of the Mid-Atlantic Committee on the Ocean’s offshore wind work group to create a miniseries of story maps offering an educational look at the basics of offshore wind energy transmission cable siting.

In one of the “Ocean Stories” features on the Mid-Atlantic Ocean Data Portal, Vilacoba interviewed Dominion Energy Environmental Services Environmental Technical Advisor Scott Lawton about some of the major factors involved in the design of the power cable route connecting to the first two offshore wind energy turbines in federal waters. The story and its scrolling data maps detail the need to steer clear of hazards and other ocean uses such as Naval training areas, fishing activity, shipwrecks and telecom cables while planning the cable alignment, which runs from Virginia Beach to the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind pilot turbines 27 miles offshore.

The other piece introduces the planning considerations involved with designing power cables in federal waters. Vilacoba worked with staff from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council on the Ocean, Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, New York State Department of State, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and U.S. Department of Energy to create the piece.

A non-mobile device is recommended for best viewing.

Associate Professor Kimberly Callas gave a Feb. 6 talk on artwork she created during her two-year faculty fellowship as the artist-in-residence for the Urban Coast Institute (UCI). The talk was presented in conjunction with Monmouth University’s ArtNOW: Performance, Art, and Technology series and Climate Crisis Teach-In lecture series.

During the fellowship, Callas created a series of large-scale (10′) drawings that connect images of the ocean, ocean archetypes, and the human body. Inspired by historical nautical charts hand-drawn and mounted on muslin, her drawings are made of graphite, dye, and India ink on paper and dyed muslin. They are then mounted on canvas. In the drawings, Callas uses latitude and longitude lines, and depth charts to ‘specifically place’ the work in places that follow the endangered North Atlantic right whale’s annual migration through the Jersey Shore. The drawings include symbols like the whale, fish, boat, net and horizon line, and archetypes like ‘the night sea journey,’ a journey navigated by stars to a new shore.

About Kimberly Callas

Callas is a multimedia artist, sculptor, and the lead artist of the social practice project Discovering the Ecological Self. She uses digital emerging technologies with traditional hand and clay modeling techniques to create life-size figures that combine the human body with symbols and patterns from nature. The figures are drawn or cast in plaster or bronze, 3D printed or routed out of wood with a computer numerical control (CNC). Ground pigments, beeswax, and natural materials such as wasp paper or birch bark are often used to finish the work.

Her work has been exhibited internationally in galleries and museums and has received national and international grants and awards. Recent awards include a Pollination Project Grant and Heidi Lynn Sculthorpe Scholars faculty enrichment grants. In 2020, she received the 1st Place Award in Sculpture at the Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club’s Annual Exhibit in New York City. Other recent exhibits include the 2019 International New Media Exhibit at the CICA Museum in South Korea, Summer Exhibition at Flowers Gallery in New York City, 9×12 at Dual Galleria in Budapest, Hungary and Crossing Boundaries: Art and the Future of Energy at The Pensacola Museum of Art, Pensacola, FL. Her work has been published in Post Human, New Media Art 2020 by CICA Press and has appeared in the Huffington Post and Art New England. Callas received her MFA from the New York Academy of Art and her BFA from Stamps School of Art at the University of Michigan. She maintains a studio in both Maine and New Jersey.

Urban Coast Institute Communications Director Karl Vilacoba served as a presenter on a Jan. 31 Mid-Atlantic Regional Council on the Ocean (MARCO) webinar on marine sanctuaries. Vilacoba, the project manager for the Mid-Atlantic Ocean Data Portal, demonstrated how to use the publicly available GIS mapping tool to get acquainted with the Hudson Canyon, which has been proposed for designation as a national marine sanctuary. Ben Haskell, deputy superintendent of Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuaries, presented a case study of sanctuaries as a conservation tool.

Urban Coast Institute Associate Director Tom Herrington and Department of Chemistry and Physics Adjunct Professor Matt Paccico delivered the joint presentation “The Sea at our Doorstep – How Rising Sea Level Will Change Our Coastal Communities in the Next 30 Years and Beyond” on Jan. 30, 2023, at the Edison Science Hall. Following the presentation, Kislak Real Estate Institute Interim Director Gina McKeever joined the panelists for a Q&A session with the audience.

The event kicked off Monmouth University’s 2023 Climate Crisis Teach-In lecture series. Visit the series web page for a full schedule of upcoming lectures.

Abstract

The elevation of the sea relative to land has varied greatly over the history of the Earth, from 330 feet higher than today during the Cretaceous Period 100 million years ago to 400 feet lower than present at the end of the last glacial maximum 22,000 years ago. In the distant past and the present, global mean sea level rise is a direct effect of climate change, resulting from a combination of thermal expansion of warming ocean waters and the addition of water mass into the ocean, largely associated with the loss of ice from glaciers and ice sheets. Sea levels will continue to rise due to the ocean’s sustained response to the warming that has already occurred — even if climate change mitigation succeeds in limiting surface air temperatures in the coming decades. Due to the increase in global warming over the last century, sea level along the U.S. East Coast is projected to rise, on average, 10-14 inches (0.25 – 0.35 meters) in the next 30 years (2020-50), which will be as much as the rise measured over the last 100 years (1920-2020). Beyond 2050, uncertainty in sea level rise projections increases substantially, due to uncertainties in future greenhouse gas emissions and in long-term ice sheet stability in a warming world. The rise in sea level will create a profound shift in coastal flooding by causing tide and storm surge heights to increase and reach further inland, making coastal communities that are already experiencing increased frequency and intensity of coastal flooding more vulnerable to widespread damage. This presentation will review the processes on Earth responsible for sea level elevation changes and what the consequences will be for our coastal communities over the next 30 years, and what the consequences could be through the end of the century.

April showers bring July harmful algal blooms (HAB) in New Jersey’s largest coastal lake. A Monmouth University-led study published in the journal Urban Naturalist finds that Deal Lake is locked in a seasonal cycle that sees the system loaded with nutrients in the cold winter and early spring months, fueling bursts of cyanobacteria growth in the summer and early fall.

Endowed Professor in Marine Science Jason Adolf, the study’s lead author, likened HAB events to baking a cake, with a recipe requiring a few key ingredients: nitrogen, phosphorous, sunlight and warm water temperatures. The researchers found that during the cold months, stormwater runoff stocks the lake with nitrogen contained in materials such as lawn soils, fertilizers and road salts. As the waters heat up, the HAB organisms feast on the nitrogen and begin to balloon in number, clouding up the water and changing its chemistry. This in turn triggers a release of phosphorous stored in sediments along the lake bottom.

According to Adolf, nitrogen tends to be consumed somewhat quickly, leaving HABs to depend on heavy rainfalls to recharge the lake in order to sustain themselves. However, he noted that phosphorous does not break down as easy, and Deal Lake likely has a heavy supply of it locked within its floor throughout the year.

Like other coastal water bodies in Monmouth County, Deal Lake has seen heavy residential and commercial development along its waterfront and tributaries through the years, reducing natural buffers that would otherwise stop runoff from entering the system. Local sewer systems also funnel unfiltered stormwater straight from the streets into the lake. With a total surface area of 155 acres, Deal Lake borders seven municipalities with a combined population of over 70,000 – a number which swells during summer tourism season. It once flowed freely into the Atlantic Ocean between Asbury Park and Allenhurst, but today is connected via a flume gate that can be manually opened and closed to regulate water levels and allow for fish migrations in and out of the lake.

The study centered on 2017 and 2018 data collected by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) and experiments conducted on water samples taken at that time by Adolf and Monmouth students. Monmouth continues to monitor Deal Lake regularly through its leadership of the Coastal Lakes Observing Network (CLONet) and other research efforts.

A comparison of the modern data and that collected through a 1978 NJDEP study indicate the system has experienced significant changes. Average Deal Lake temperatures reached 84.2 degrees in July of 2017 and 82-84 degrees in July-August of 2018, versus 66.6 and 68.9 degrees reported in July and August of 1978. The authors raise two possible factors behind the rise in water temperatures: warming air temperatures in New Jersey and infilling from sediment runoff that’s left the lake shallower and easier to warm.

 “The challenges for Deal Lake could become more serious as climate change advances, bringing warmer waters that are more hospitable to HABs,” Adolf said. “Communities along the lake should focus on targeted watershed improvements, including the restoration of wetlands and natural features around waterfront areas, to control seasonal nutrient loading from stormwater runoff. They should also consider dredging to reduce the phosphorous locked in the lake bottom in the winter and bring the body closer to its historic depths.”

The issue of HABs in New Jersey has gained attention in recent years due to lengthy closures at summer tourist destinations such as Lake Hopatcong and Greenwood Lake that impacted their local economies. The toxins present in HAB events can make humans and pets sick upon contact, cause mass fish kills, and threaten water supplies. They are characterized by green slicks that can resemble spilled paint and foul odors.

The study, “Nitrogen-Limited Cyanobacterial Harmful Algal Blooms in Deal Lake, New Jersey,” was co-authored by Katie Saldutti of the Rutgers University Department of Coastal Science; Erin Conlon of the Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute; and Eric Ernst, Bill Heddendorf, Sheri Shifren and Robert Schuster of the NJDEP Bureau of Marine Water Monitoring.

By Tony MacDonald, Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute Director

The ocean community has come a long way from the 2015 United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP21), when we were fighting to get the important role of oceans in climate called out in the preamble of the conference declaration, and ocean events organized by the late Dr. Biliana Cicin-Sain and others were relegated to a venue outside of the diplomatic zone. In November at COP27 in Egypt, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Scripps Institution of Oceanography joined with other oceanographic partners and policy and science leaders from around the globe at the first-ever Ocean Pavilion in the so-called Blue Zone, where diplomatic representatives and official observer groups meet.

The Urban Coast Institute (UCI) secured official observer status at COP26 in 2021. When I arrived on site on Nov. 11, I was pleased to find the Ocean Pavilion right around the corner from the U.S. Pavilion, where President Biden’s in-person address to the conference was being streamed live.

To open the conference, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, reflecting the increasingly dire predictions of the latest scientific reports (i.e. the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report) and urgent calls for more aggressive action to reduce carbon emissions in order the meet the COP21 agreement’s target of limiting a global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius, set an ominous tone, declaring, “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator.” Two weeks later when the parties adopted their final declaration, the Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan, most commenters felt that despite progress in a few areas they had fallen well short of meeting this.  

The main areas of focus were the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) to keep with the 1.5-degree target; support for adaptation for impacts that are already “baked” into the climate; and simplifying and clarifying access to international finance mechanisms, and the establishment of something called a “loss and damage” fund.  It was hard for delegates not to look over their shoulder to the war in Ukraine, political instability at home, and volatile energy prices as they entered into negotiation.

Although in the end it was agreed to maintain the Paris agreement’s 1.5 C target through “rapid, deep and sustained reductions in global GHG emissions” and rapid transition to renewable energy, that ignores the reality that the aggregated effect of parties’ implementation plans and mitigation pledges through what are called National Determined Contributions (NDC) currently fall far short of what is needed. They rejected calls from many nations for the phase-out of subsidies and phase-down of all fossil fuels. The final decision defaulted to the somewhat mealy-mouthed commitment to the phase-down of “unabated coal power” and the phase-out of “inefficient fossil fuel subsidies … in line with national circumstances.” It wouldn’t take much of a lawyer to drive a carbon-spewing truck through these requirements.

It is important to recognize, however, that it isn’t necessary to have binding international agreements to drive action at the state and local levels, where there is a growing consensus that more aggressive carbon reduction actions are necessary. I participated in two panels at COP27 which featured innovative actions to reduce carbon and contribute to more aggressive NDCs. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (Rhode Island) provided opening remarks for the first session at the Ocean Pavilion (see video above). The session highlighted policy innovations at the ocean-climate nexus to accelerate decarbonization and improve the blue economy, including green shipping, local fisheries practices and aquaculture in the Philippines, and ocean-based renewable energy. (Click here to view additional videos of Ocean Pavilion presentations.)

The second panel, “Coordination and Collaboration towards Ocean Blue NDCs,” was hosted by the Global Ocean Forum, the Government of Fiji and several other international partners. The panel was kicked off by the ambassador and permanent representative of Fiji to the UN in New York and featured collaborative initiatives among various stakeholders from Africa, France, Canada and the U.S. which support the incorporation of ocean action to strengthen the NDCs. In each panel I highlighted work that the UCI and others are doing in the Mid-Atlantic to collaborate with state and federal government partners, stakeholders and scientists to support regional ocean planning, including responsible siting of offshore wind, sustainable marine navigation, as well as support for healthy ocean ecosystems.

In addition to the on-site Ocean Pavilion, the Global Ocean Forum organized the Virtual Ocean Pavilion to amplify what was happening at COP27 and bring voices to the table from around the world to showcase why the ocean matters in climate negotiations and to all life on our planet. All of that information is still available.

Although the final declaration restates the need for adaptation support for finance, technology transfer, and capacity-building for developing nations, it rejected demands for developing nations to double adaptation finance by 2025. Some progress was made in recognizing the importance of reforming international finance mechanisms, setting up a pathway for future negotiations, including the need to provide $100 billion per year to developing countries for the implementation of mitigation and adaptation ambitions. Several late nights and last-minute negotiations were needed to reach a breakthrough after many years of contentious negotiations to establish a “Loss and Damage” fund to support communities that have been most affected by climate change. However, in order to reach consensus, the hard work of how much, how to administer, and how to access finance through the fund was left to future negotiations.

In addition to being called out in the preamble of the final COP declaration (“the importance of ensuring the integrity of all ecosystems, including in forests, the ocean and the cryosphere, and the protection of biodiversity”), the importance of the oceans was noted in several other provisions, including the following:

• The “importance of protecting, conserving and restoring nature and ecosystems … including through … marine ecosystems acting as sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases and by protecting biodiversity.”
• Expanded commitment to UN-hosted “ocean and climate change dialogues.”
• Encouraging parties to include “ocean-based action in their national climate goals.”  
• The need to fill “systematic observation gaps … for ocean, mountain, desert and polar regions and the cryosphere in order to improve understanding of climate change.”

In addition to serving as the venue for the diplomatic meetings and negotiation highlighted here, the COP functions as a hybrid trade show, uber-networking event, and platform for initiating and announcing other related actions and partnerships. The U.S. reiterated its commitment to climate-ocean solutions and the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, joined Norway and other nations in launching the “Green Shipping Challenge,” and joined the Global Offshore Wind Alliance (GOWA). France expressed its support for the prohibition of seabed exploitation.

Although some progress was made in bringing the oceans into the climate negotiations, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to take a comprehensive and holistic approach to ocean conservation and sustainable use, including biodiversity, seabed mining, plastics, and governance of the high seas beyond national jurisdictions. For example, over the past two weeks, the US has been meeting with other nations in Montreal for the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and negotiations of a post-2020 global framework for biodiversity. It remains to be seen whether the CBD will take actions necessary to maintain and restore the health of our global ocean, and ensure it continues to regulate the climate system.

A recently finalized articulation agreement between institutions will ease the pathway for Monmouth University undergraduate students interested in pursuing master of science (M.S.) or professional science master’s (P.S.M.) degrees through Stockton University’s Coastal Zone Management Program.

Under the framework, Stockton, located in Galloway Township, New Jersey, will admit up to five Monmouth students each year who are on track to graduate with a bachelor of science (B.S.) degree through the Marine and Environmental Biology and Policy (MEBP) Program. The application fee for students will be waived.

The dean of the Monmouth University School of Science and chair of the Department of Biology will interview and recommend students for matriculation into the Stockton program during their junior year. Stockton will officially inform successful applicants at the end of that year.

According to the Stockton M.S./P.S.M. in coastal zone management website, the purpose of the graduate degree program is “to develop the holistic knowledge and skills necessary to navigate the complexities of managing human interactions within a highly dynamic coastal environment, and to analyze the natural, social, legal, economic and institutional processes for integrated coastal zone management and sustainable development.”

The five-year agreement will take effect on July 1, 2023, and could be extended at a later date.

For more information, contact Monmouth University School of Science Assistant Dean John Tiedemann at jtiedema@monmouth.edu.