Scripps Institution of Oceanography

The Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) is the center for oceanography and Earth science based at the University of California, San Diego. Its main campus is located in La Jolla, with additional facilities in Point Loma.

Founded in 1903 and incorporated into the University of California system in 1912, the institution has since broadened its research focus to encompass the physics, chemistry, geology, biology, and climate of the Earth. The institution awards the Nierenberg Prize annually to recognize researchers with exceptional contributions to science in public interest.

Founding
The Scripps Institution of Oceanography can trace its beginnings back to William Ritter, a biologist originally from Wisconsin. In 1891, Ritter was offered a job teaching biology at the University of California, Berkeley and married Mary Bennett. Their honeymoon and subsequent biological studies took them to San Diego, where Ritter met a local physician and naturalist, Dr. Fred Baker, who would later encourage him to build a marine biological laboratory in San Diego.

Ritter searched for eleven years for an appropriate place for a permanent marine biological laboratory. He spent summers at various places along the coast with students. His goal was frustrated by lack of money and lack of an appropriate place. During this time, research was being conducted at the boathouse of the Hotel del Coronado on San Diego Bay. In 1903 Ritter was introduced to newspaper magnate E. W. Scripps. Together with Scripps' half-sister Ellen Browning Scripps, and Dr. Baker, they formed the Marine Biological Association of San Diego with Ritter as the Scientific Director. They fully funded the institution for its first decade. E. W. Scripps gave the biological association the use of his yacht, the Loma, in 1904 and served as the first research vessel in the history of the institution. In 1905, they moved to a small laboratory in La Jolla Cove until they arranged for the purchase of a 170 acre site in La Jolla, north of San Diego. The land was purchased for $1,000 at a public auction from the city of San Diego (the same site where the SIO main campus is today). However, construction cost estimates for a permeant building were around $50,000. Funding was secured through E. W. and E. B. Scripps, and the first permanent building (today known as the Old Scripps Building) was constructed in 1910.

The Marine Biological Association's first seafaring vessel, the Loma, would run aground in Point Loma in 1906 and prompted the search for a new one. With funds secured from Ellen Browning Scripps, the association was able to have a ship built by Lawrence Jensen strictly for oceanographic research - among the first for an American nongovernmental institution. The new vessel was acquired on April 21st, 1907 and was named the Alexander Agassiz after the Harvard biologist who had visited in 1905.

In 1912 the Biological Association became incorporated into the University of California and was renamed the Scripps Institution for Biological Research.

The first iteration of the Scripps Pier, along with other buildings, was approved for construction in 1913, but was only completed in 1916 due to delays related to World War I. In 1915, the first building devoted solely to an aquarium was built on the Scripps campus. The small, wooden structure contained 19 tanks ranging in size from 96 to 228 gal. The oceanographic museum was located in a nearby building. Since the pier was completed in 1916, measurements have been taken daily. The modern Scripps pier was built as a replacement for the 1916 structure in 1988.

The institution's name changed to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (often shortened to just SIO) in October of 1925 to recognize the growing faculty's widened range of studies.

Easter Ellen Cupp would be the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in oceanography from SIO in 1934, studying diatoms under Wynfred Allen. She would stay with Scripps until 1939.

In 1935, SIO director T. Wayland Vaughan was the first Scripps member to be awarded the Alexander Agassiz Medal by the National Academy of Sciences. Harald Sverdrup would be awarded the medal 3 years later, beginning a long history of Scripps oceanographers being awarded the prize (Johnson in 1959, Revelle in 1963, and many more).

In November, 1936, the research vessel Scripps was sunk when there was an explosion in the galley, killing the cook and injuring the captain. The sinking of the Scripps left SIO without a research vessel, so SIO director Sverdrup approached the UC president Robert Gordon Sproul and Bob Scripps (son of E.W and Ellen) to acquire a new one. They found Bob's pleasure yacht, Novia Del Mar, ill-fitting for the science roles performed by the Scripps, and purchased a different yacht from actor Lewis Stone in April 1937. The Serena was rechristened E. W. Scripps and was presented to SIO in December 1937. The E. W. Scripps would be quintessential for Sverdrup to build datasets supporting simple theories of ocean circulation, including the Sverdrup balance.

Wartime
When WWII broke out Scripps created The University of California Division of War Research (UCDWR) in Point Loma, focusing on acoustics and waves to support the US Navy. Collaborative research between the UCDWR and the Navy led to the discovery of the deep scattering layer, a region from 300 - 500 m deep filled with organisms. The UCDWR would continue to research sound beacons and sonar until being absorbed into the Navy Electronics Laboratory and Scripps Marine Physical Laboratory between 1945 and 1948.

With Harald Sverdrup as the SIO director, recent graduate student Walter Munk was recalled from the army and together they were tasked with aiding Allied amphibious landings off the coast of Africa. The goal was to predict coastal surf and sea state for Allied landings in Africa, though their model was also applied to the Allied landings in Normandy, Sicily, and in the Pacific. Though Sverdrup was initially intending on holding the position of SIO director for only 3 years until 1939, Nazi occupation of Norway prolonged his assumption of the role until 1948.

It was during 1942 that Sverdrup, along with Martin Johnson and Richard Fleming, completed the first comprehensive textbook of oceanography, The Oceans. The textbook was considered a first of its kind and of such military importance that it was forbidden from distribution outside of the United States.

SIO's first scientific diver was biologist Cheng Kwai Tseng, who used equipment to collect algae off the coast of San Diego in 1944.

The Golden Age of Oceanography
Following the war, the Navy bestowed a number of vessels to SIO ushering in a "Golden Age" of oceanographic research and discoveries. Between 1947 and 1949 three post-war vessels were acquired and modified for scientific research: The Crest, Paolina-T, and Horizon. This, combined with the overlap of the newly-established Office of Naval Research (ONR) in 1946, provided additional expertise and resources for ocean exploration. The three new vessels were put to work on the new Marine Life Research Program in 1950, which sought to investigate the collapse of the California sardine population. In doing so, approximately 670,000 square miles of ocean would need to be surveyed.

When the Aqua-Lung was made available in the US in 1948, UCLA graduates Conrad Limbaugh and Andy Rechnitzer were able to convince Boyd W. Walker, their marine biology advisor at the time, to purchase one. Together, they introduced the Aqua-Lung to SIO in 1950 (with Limbaugh studying under Dr. Carl Hubbs) and began the Scripps Diving Program. Following a diving fatality at La Jolla in 1950, Director Roger Revelle requested that Limbaugh develop a SCUBA training program for SIO, which debuted in 1951 and was heavily influenced by practices of the U.S. Navy's Underwater Demolition Team. It was also during this time that Hugh Bradner, a physicist at UC Berkeley, became an advisor at SIO and developed the wetsuit in 1952. Dr. Bradner would go on to become a professor at SIO's Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics in 1961. The SIO Diving Program would continue to innovate and expand up to more than 160 affiliated divers in 2015.

The Scripps Aquarium-Museum opened in 1951 and named to honor former institution director T. Wayland Vaughan. The three-story facility served the institution for more than 40 years. A ring of 18 tanks, the largest at 2000 gal, surrounded a central museum of glass exhibit cases displaying Scripps research projects. Within a month of its opening, visitors from all 48 states had signed the guest book.

In 1959, an additional administration building was constructed next to the original 1910 building, named the "New Scripps" building. Campus construction expanded with the completion of the Sumner Auditorium and Sverdrup Hall in 1960.

Scripps Institution of Oceanography director Roger Revelle spearheaded the formation of the University of California, San Diego in 1960 on a bluff overlooking Scripps Institution, with SIO acting as the nucleus.

In 1965, Scripps began leasing 6 acres of land in Point Loma to tie up research vessels, including the RP Flip, from the US Navy. The navy gave this land to Scripps in 1975 and the facility was named the Nimitz Marine Facility (or MarFac) after Chester Nimitz.

On October 25, 1973, California Sea Grant became a college (National Sea Grant College Program) administered by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego.

From March to May of 1979, SIO directed the RISE project and oversaw the 1979 discovery of black smoker hydrothermal vents at the East Pacific Rise.

International Projects and Modern History
The Old Scripps Building, designed by Irving Gill, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1982. Architect Barton Myers designed the current Scripps Building for the Institution of Oceanography in 1998.

In 2007, the family and wife of late Roger Revelle donated 2.5 million dollars toward the Roger Revelle Chair endowed position, which Shang-Ping Xie now holds.

In 2014, SIO received a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to test the use of biofuels on one of its ships, the Robert Gordon Sproul. The vessel operated from September 2014 to December 2015 on 100% biofuels which reduced nitrous oxide emissions, but increased particle emissions. However, the fuel source provided a proof of concept that research operations could be completed using biofuels rather than conventional diesel.

2014 was also the first year of cruises for the international GO-SHIP program, a repeat hydrography program focusing on straight transects across major ocean basins and a follow-up to WOCE. Scripps, along with NOAA as the sole American members of the science committee, has overseen and advised many expeditions to contribute to the global data set.

In 2019, Scripps received $1.2 million of philanthropic funding for a 42-foot research vessel, named after Dr. John Beyster and his wife Betty.

A campus report was published in 2022 describing campus lab, office, and storage spaces and found that women make up 26% of research scientists at SIO, yet occupy 17% of the space. The report highlighted that emeritus faculty on campus are 86% male and hold nearly 25% of all space at SIO.

2023 Graduate Protests
In May 2023, the Scripps campus in La Jolla opened the Ted and Jean Scripps Marine Conservation and Technology Facility. The building required the razing of 3 older buildings originally constructed in 1963 and reinforcing of the nearby hillside in 2014. A month later, the building was vandalized in a protest against low graduate student wages. In June 2023, two SIO students and one recent graduate were arrested at their homes by University of California Police and held in custody overnight. The University alleged $12,000 in damages related to this incident. Union leadership in UAW 2865 and 5810, the local union chapters representing the arrested workers, accuse the University of California of retaliation and reneging on the contracts signed at the conclusion of the 2022 UC academic workers' strike. On July 10, 2023, hundreds of protesters gathered at San Diego's Central Courthouse to protest the arrests, however in a written statement the San Diego District Attorney's office said the arraignment would not move forward because the case had not been submitted to its office for review. However, university officials have up to three years to file charges and on July 18, 2023 UCPD obtained a warrant and searched a fourth student's house for evidence of chalk or union affiliation in relation to the May 30 incident.

Main Campus
The SIO main campus is located in La Jolla, situated between La Jolla shores and Black's Beach. La Jolla Shores Drive provides access to greater La Jolla to the south, while continuing north through campus to the main UCSD campus.

Mass transit service to the main campus is handled by MTS line 30 (coming every 15 minutes) and UCSD's SIO bus route (every 10 minutes). Route 30 has stops exclusively on La Jolla Shores Drive, heading north to UTC and south all the way to the transit center in Old Town. The SIO route offers more comprehensive coverage of campus grounds, starting in Pawka Green, then La Jolla Shores Drive, Shellback Way, The Birch Aquarium, and then north to the Gilman Transit Center at UCSD's main campus.

Three sites on campus (the Seaside Forum, the Martin Johnson House, and Birch Aquarium) are available to the general public for rental.

Biological Grade
Biological Grade is the street running North to South parallel to La Jolla Shores drive, connecting a number of laboratories, libraries, and research halls. It was built between 1910 and 1912 with the original Old Scripps Building and was part of the main highway between San Diego and Los Angeles. As the campus grew, La Jolla Shores Drive was constructed to reroute through traffic for automobiles. Biological Grade connects to Shellback Way on the other side of La Jolla Shores Drive via the La Jolla Shores Pedestrian Bridge (also known as Scripps Crossing), erected in 1993.

The Scripps Coastal Meander trail (part of the California Coastal Trail) starts at the northern end of Biological Grade and connects to other trails, eventually terminating at Black's Beach.

Pawka Green and Naga Way
South of Biological Grade is the Pawka Green, named after Steven Pawka. The bordering Naga Way separates the labs from Biological Grade from the halls around Pawka Green, which are more oriented towards administration and instruction. The Naga Way street is named after the Naga Expedition, which took place in 1959 studying the Gulf of Thailand and South China sea.

Shellback Way
Shellback Way connects a series of halls and labs on the east side of La Jolla Shores Drive, with greater emphasis on atmospheric science and fisheries. It connects to Biological Grade via the La Jolla Shores Pedestrian Bridge. Shellback Way is named after the Shellback Expedition which studied the deep Pacific off the coast of Peru, running from May to August of 1952.

Downwind Way
Downwind Way connects La Jolla Shores Drive to Expedition Way, providing access to the rest of UCSD. This section of campus includes campus storage and facilities, the Birch Aquarium, and Deep Sea Drilling Program. It is named after the first of three International Geophisical Year cruises, taking place from October 1957 to February 1958.

Nimitz Marine Facility
The Nimitz Marine facility can be accessed by Rosecrans Street in Point Loma. The facility borders the Point Loma Navy Base, operated by the NIWC. Buildings at the Nimitz Marine Facility are numbered in increasing order from the waterfront approaching Rosecrans Street. As of 2008, a TWIC card is required for access to the waterfront at MarFac as required by the United States Coast Guard.

The facility is serviced hourly by bus route 84 of the San Diego MTS, running from the Navy Base to Shelter Island and the Cabrillo National Monument.

Research programs
The institution's research programs encompass biological, physical, chemical, geological, and geophysical studies of the oceans and land. Scripps also studies the interaction of the oceans with both the atmospheric climate and environmental concerns on terra firma. Related to this research, Scripps offers undergraduate and graduate degrees.

Today, the Scripps staff of 1,300 includes approximately 235 faculty, 180 other scientists and some 350 graduate students, with an annual budget of more than $281 million. The institution operates a fleet of four oceanographic research vessels.

Research themes
Scripps follows a number of interdisciplinary research themes:


 * Climate change impacts and adaption
 * Resilience to hazards
 * Human health and the oceans
 * Innovative technology
 * Polar science
 * Biodiversity and conservation
 * National security

CalCOFI program
The California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) program, established in 1949, is an ongoing partnership between SIO, NOAA Fisheries, and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to study sardine population collapse and the marine environment off the coast of Southern California. Data are collected on routine research cruises and are able to be compared over many decades in a large service area.

The Keeling Curve


The Keeling Curve is the longest-running time series of atmospheric CO2, beginning in 1958. Spearheaded by Charles David Keeling, SIO established a research center in Mauna Loa, Hawaii to record atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Since then, SIO researchers have expanded the dataset into numerous other sampling locations and analytical parameters to monitor climate change.

Research Sections
Scripps Oceanography is divided into three research sections, each with its own subdivisions:


 * Biology
 * Center for Marine Biotechnology & Biomedicine (CMBB)
 * Integrative Oceanography Division (IOD)
 * Marine Biology Research Division (MBRD)
 * Earth
 * Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP)
 * Geosciences Research Division (GRD)
 * Oceans & Atmosphere
 * Climate, Atmospheric Science & Physical Oceanography (CASPO)
 * Marine Physical Laboratory (MPL)

Directors
Margaret Leinen took office as the Director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Vice Chancellor for Marine Sciences, and Dean of the Graduate School of Marine Sciences on October 1, 2013.

List of Prior SIO Directors

Research vessels
Scripps owns and operates several research vessels and platforms:


 * RV Roger Revelle
 * RV Sally Ride
 * RV Robert Gordon Sproul
 * RV Bob and Betty Beyster

Current and previous vessels larger than 50 ft (15 m)

Hybrid Hydrogen Research Vessel
In 2021, Scripps was awarded $35 million for the development of a new coastal research vessel as a replacement for the RV Robert Gordon Sproul, in service since 1984. The proposed vessel would be 125 feet long and take 3 years to build, becoming the first hybrid-hydrogen research vessel in the UNOLS fleet and aiding in the University of California's Carbon Neutrality Initiative. Scripps chose Seattle-based architect Glosten as the ship's designer, having work experience from numerous other SIO vessels. It is expected that the research vessel will operate on hydrogen power for 75% of its operations.

Birch Aquarium


Birch Aquarium, the public exploration center for the institution, features a Hall of Fishes with more than 60 tanks of Pacific fishes and invertebrates from the cold waters of the Pacific Northwest to the tropical waters of Mexico and the IndoPacific, a 13,000-gallon local shark and ray exhibit, interactive tide pools, and interactive science exhibits. In 2022, the aquarium opened a new exhibit for blue penguins.

Notable faculty members (past and present)

 * Lihini Aluwihare
 * Dahiana Arcila
 * Farooq Azam
 * George Backus
 * Ernest Baldwin
 * Andrew Benson
 * Ricardo Betancur-R.
 * Hugh Bradner
 * Edward Brinton
 * Theodore Holmes Bullock
 * Ralph J. Cicerone
 * Robert W. Corell
 * Harmon Craig
 * Paul J. Crutzen
 * Russ E. Davis
 * Paul K. Dayton
 * Edward DeLong
 * Robert S. Dietz
 * Seibert Q. Duntley
 * Carl Eckart
 * Jim T. Enright
 * David Epel
 * Edward A. Frieman
 * Robert Garrels
 * Freeman Gilbert
 * Edward D. Goldberg
 * Klaus Hasselmann
 * Joel Hedgpeth
 * Walter Heiligenberg
 * Myrl C. Hendershott
 * Sam Hinton
 * Carl Hubbs
 * Douglas Inman
 * John Dove Isaacs
 * Jeremy Jackson
 * Martin W. Johnson
 * Thomas H. Jordan
 * Miriam Kastner
 * Charles David Keeling
 * Ralph Keeling
 * Charles Kennel
 * Nancy Knowlton
 * Lisa Levin
 * Ralph A. Lewin
 * Michael S. Longuet-Higgins
 * Edwin P. Martz
 * Wallace K. (Ken) Melville
 * Henry William Menard
 * Mario J. Molina
 * John W. Miles
 * B. Greg Mitchell
 * Judith Munk
 * Walter Munk
 * Jerome Namias
 * William Nierenberg
 * Pearn P. Niiler
 * Stewart Nozette
 * Veerabhadran Ramanathan
 * Roger Revelle
 * William Emerson Ritter
 * Dean Roemmich
 * Richard Heinrich Rosenblatt
 * Enric Sala
 * Rick Salmon
 * Hans Suess
 * Francis Parker Shepard
 * Cornelius Cole Smith, Jr.
 * Richard Somerville
 * Fred Spiess
 * Janet Sprintall
 * George Sugihara
 * Harald Sverdrup
 * Lynne Talley
 * Warren White
 * Klaus Wyrtki
 * Victor Vacquier
 * Benjamin Elazari Volcani
 * Shang-Ping Xie
 * William R. Young

Notable alumni

 * Tanya Atwater
 * Thomas E. Bowman III
 * Edward Brinton
 * Stephen E. Calvert
 * Kim Cobb
 * Jack Corliss
 * John M. Edmond
 * Kenneth Farley
 * Michael Freilich
 * Susan M. Gaines
 * Timothy Gallaudet
 * Eric Giddens
 * Susan Hough
 * Ancel Keys
 * Megan McArthur
 * James J. McCarthy
 * Marcia McNutt
 * Jessica Meir
 * Walter Munk
 * Wheeler J. North
 * Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara
 * Colm Ó hEocha
 * Joseph R. Pawlik
 * George Perry
 * S. K. Satheesh
 * Brinke Stevens
 * Christopher Stott
 * Brian Tucker

Popular culture
In 2014, the institution and its Keeling Curve measurement of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were featured as a plot point in an episode of HBO's The Newsroom. In 2008, Scripps Institution of Oceanography was the subject of a category on the TV game show Jeopardy!. Scripps has been a story element in numerous fictional works.