Atlas8 min read
Arraial do Cabo: Brazil's Cold-Water Oasis
A region guide to Arraial do Cabo — the wind-driven upwelling that chills Brazil's warm coast, its kelp-like Sargassum beds, rich reefs and dive-season rhythms.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
#upwelling
30 articles
Atlas8 min read
Arraial do Cabo: Brazil's Upwelling Kelp Outlier
On a headland east of Rio de Janeiro, wind-driven upwelling chills subtropical water enough for deep kelp beds — Brazil's strangest and most surprising forest.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Atlas11 min read
Canary Islands: Kelp Forests on the Edge of the Desert
Off the Sahara's shoulder, the Canary Islands grow seaweed forests in upwelled water — until heatwaves and sea urchins turn them. An atlas of kelp's southern edge.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Atlas11 min read
Kelp Forests of Portugal: The Southern Edge of the Range
A coastal atlas guide to Portugal's kelp forests — upwelling-fed golden kelp at its southern Atlantic limit, from the Minho to the Arrábida, and what heat is doing to it.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Atlas11 min read
Lüderitz, Namibia: Benguela Kelp on a Desert Coast
Off Namibia's windswept diamond coast, the Lüderitz upwelling cell brews some of the coldest, richest water in the Benguela — and a desert-shore kelp forest.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Science8 min read
Marine Fog: The Grey Curtain That Kelp Coasts Call Home
Why the world's great kelp coasts spend their summers under a blanket of fog, how the ocean manufactures it, and what a shifting grey sky means for forests below.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Science7 min read
The Marine Nitrogen Cycle: The Engine Behind Every Kelp Forest
How nitrogen moves through coastal ecosystems — nitrate, ammonium, microbes and upwelling — and why the nitrogen cycle decides where kelp forests thrive.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Science9 min read
Ocean Fronts: Where Two Waters Meet and Life Explodes
Ocean fronts — the sharp boundaries where different water masses collide — concentrate plankton, baitfish and predators into living lines. Here's why they matter.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Science10 min read
Oxygen Minimum Zones Explained: The Ocean's Midwater Low-Oxygen Layers
What oxygen minimum zones are, where they form, how they shape the largest daily migration on Earth, and why warming is pushing them wider and shallower.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Atlas9 min read
Portland to Discovery Bay: Windblown Kelp of Western Victoria
Western Victoria's Portland coast mixes Australia’s only mainland gannet colony, summer blue whales and golden kelp beds fed by the Bonney upwelling.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Atlas8 min read
The Strait of Juan de Fuca: Bull Kelp Where Two Seas Mix
At the Salish Sea's front door, Pacific upwelling meets inland outflow over bull kelp forests and tidal races. A coastal atlas guide to the strait.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Science11 min read
Upwelling Shadows: The Quiet Water Behind Headlands and Kelp Forests
Where wind-driven upwelling stalls behind headlands, pockets of warm, retentive water form. These 'upwelling shadows' shape larvae, kelp and climate refuges.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Science9 min read
Boundary Currents: The Ocean Rivers That Decide Where Kelp Grows
Every great kelp forest sits in the shadow of a great current. Here's how western and eastern boundary currents shape temperature, nutrients and the world's temperate reefs.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Science8 min read
Ekman Transport: Why Wind-Driven Water Walks Sideways
Wind blows, water turns ninety degrees. The gentle physics of Ekman transport — the spiral beneath the surface, coastal upwelling, gyre hills and spills.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Atlas9 min read
Galicia's Rías: Where Kelp Meets the Harvest
Galicia's drowned river valleys mix upwelled Atlantic riches with a foraging culture older than Spain's seaweed industry. A guide to the rías and their kelp.
Sofia Andersson ·
Science9 min read
Ocean Acidification: The Other CO₂ Problem — Corrosive Water, Hatcheries and How Coasts Adapt
Ocean acidification goes far beyond a falling pH number. Here's where corrosive water actually shows up, what it does to hatcheries and fisheries, and how coasts adapt.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Atlas9 min read
Point Reyes: Wind, Upwelling and Bull Kelp at the Edge of the Continent
A Coastal Atlas field guide to Point Reyes' headland kelp beds — cape oceanography, the annual bull kelp cycle, and the best ways to see it.
Tom Okafor ·
Science8 min read
Ocean Acidification and Shellfish: The Hatchery Crisis That Started the Alarm
When Pacific oyster larvae began dying in Northwest hatcheries in the mid-2000s, ocean acidification stepped out of the textbook. Here's what happened.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Atlas9 min read
Chile's Humboldt Coast: The World's Richest Kelp Frontier
Explore Chile's Humboldt Current coast: relentless upwelling, Lessonia and giant kelp beds, the cochayuyo harvest tradition, and the pressures reshaping 4,000 km of reef.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Science12 min read
Feeding a Forest: Kelp and the Coastal Nutrient Cycle
Kelp has no roots, yet builds the fastest-growing forests on Earth. How nitrogen, phosphorus and trace metals reach kelp blades — and how kelp recycles them back.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Field Notes8 min read
The Long Fog: Summer Operations in Mendocino
A field note from three fog-bound months on California's north coast: working around the marine layer, and why the fog and the kelp are the same story.
Jack Callum ·
Atlas9 min read
Rías Baixas: Kelp, Harvesters and the Galician Tide
A ría-by-ría field guide to Galicia's drowned southern estuaries — mussel rafts, sea-spaghetti kelps and the Cíes Islands, fed by one of the Atlantic's great upwellings.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Atlas8 min read
Langebaan Lagoon and the West Coast: South Africa's Quiet Kelp
Langebaan Lagoon runs warm and shallow while the Atlantic outside stays cold and kelp-lined. A guide to South Africa's surprising West Coast shores.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Atlas8 min read
St Helena Bay: The Upwelling Heart of South Africa's West Coast Kelp
St Helena Bay is where the Benguela upwelling cell is born — kelp fringe, rock lobster, seabird islands, and the dynamics of a bay that feeds an entire region.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Atlas7 min read
Point Reyes: Where Upwelling Feeds a Forest
A Coastal Atlas guide to Point Reyes: California's upwelling engine, fog-fed kelp, elephant seals and grey whales, and how wind builds a food web.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Atlas8 min read
Bodega Head: Where Wave-Battered Rock Meets the Bull Kelp Fringe
A field guide to Bodega Head — the granite headland on California's Sonoma Coast where upwelling, bull kelp and world-class marine science meet.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Atlas11 min read
Paracas: Kelp, Anchoveta and the Peruvian Upwelling
Where Humboldt Current upwelling meets a desert peninsula: kelp, the anchoveta fleet and the guano-bird cliffs of the Ballestas. A Coastal Atlas guide.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Science11 min read
Thermal Refugia: The Cool Pockets Where Forests Survive
When heatwaves strip a coastline's kelp, some reefs stay cool and keep their forests. Here's how thermal refugia form — and why they're restoration gold.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Science9 min read
Oxygen Minimum Zones: The Ocean's Expanding Breathless Layers
Oxygen minimum zones are vast, naturally breathless layers of the mid-water ocean. How they form, why warming expands them, and what that means for coasts.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Science8 min read
What Is Upwelling? The Physics That Turns Wind into Food
A deep dive into upwelling physics: Ekman transport, the world's great upwelling systems, how scientists track them from space, and what climate change does.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·