We propose a new synthesis effort between the California Current Ecosystem (CCE) LTER, the Mo’orea Coral Reef (MCR) LTER and the Santa Barbara Channel (SBC) LTER to incorporate regional modeling of physical processes around islands in both the tropical Pacific and California Current regions.
While these LTERs are focused on two vastly different oceanic regions, they each contain a number of small islands that interfere with larger-scale ocean circulation by producing wakes, trapped circulation patterns and other island topographic effects.
These regional patterns will influence connectivity and larval transport between islands (and in the case of CCE and SBC, between the mainland and the islands).
These issues are poorly understood at these sites and additional modeling work (regional ocean simulations) needs to be developed to address these complicated issues.
An attempt to study these sites with synergistic ocean model simulations simultaneously will enhance understanding at all the sites.
Modeling techniques developed at one site are easily transferable to the others.
