David Schmalz here. I first wrote about the depletion of kelp forests locally in May 2018, which came to my attention while attending a Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council meeting a few weeks earlier.
At the time, I was wholly unaware of the phenomenon, but I’ve read plenty of other stories about it since mine went to print. In my 2018 story, it ends with the question of whether or not kelp’s decline is the “harbinger of the future” as climate change keeps warming the ocean—local kelp prefer cooler waters.
Mark Carr, a marine ecology professor at UC Santa Cruz who is considered perhaps the top kelp expert on the Central Coast, told me six years ago, “That’s the million-dollar question. I don’t think anyone knows.”
For this week’s cover story, I set out to see if there’s an answer yet to that question six years later. I talked to Carr, among other sources, including diver Keith Rootsaert, who spoke at the April 2018 Advisory Council meeting about kelp forests being replaced by nearly lifeless barrens of urchins around much of the Monterey Peninsula. It was Rootsaert’s impassioned testimony to the council—on which he now serves—that made me certain there was a story there.
What I found was a struggle between divers, who want to get to work immediately, scientists who want more data, and regulators struggling with how to manage an unprecedented problem.
I encourage you to check it out—climate change is disrupting ecosystems worldwide, and the future holds even more questions about how we should best deal with that.