APL-UW Home

Jobs
About
Campus Map
Contact
Privacy
Intranet

Jan Newton

Senior Principal Oceanographer

Affiliate Professor, Oceanography

Email

janewton@uw.edu

Phone

206-543-9152

Biosketch

Dr. Jan Newton is a Senior Principal Oceanographer with the Applied Physics Laboratory of the University of Washington and an affiliate professor with the UW School of Oceanography and the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs, both in the UW College of the Environment. She is the Executive Director of the Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems (NANOOS), the US IOOS Regional Association for the Pacific Northwest. She is a Co-director of the Washington Ocean Acidification Center and the Co-chair of the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network.

Jan is a biological oceanographer who has studied the physical, chemical, and biological dynamics of Puget Sound and coastal Washington, including understanding effects from climate and humans on water properties. Currently she has been working with colleagues at UW and NOAA to assess the status of ocean acidification in our local waters.

Department Affiliation

Ocean Physics

Education

B.S. Biology, Western Washington University, 1981

M.S. Oceanography, University of Washington - Seattle, 1984

Ph.D. Oceanography, University of Washington - Seattle, 1989

Projects

Washington Real-time Coastal Moorings (NEMO)

The Northwest Enhanced Moored Observatory (NEMO), which consists of a heavily-instrumented real-time surface mooring (Cha Ba), a real-time subsurface profiling mooring (NEMO-Subsurface) and a Seaglider to collect spatial information, aims to improve our understanding of complex physical, chemical and biological processes on the largely unsampled Washington shelf.

27 Sep 2011

NVS: NANOOS Visualization System

The NANOOS Visualization System (NVS) is your tool for easy access to data. NVS gathers data across a wide range of assets such as buoys, shore stations, and coastal land-based stations. Never before available downloads and visualizations are provided in a consistent format. You can access plots and data for almost all in-situ assets for the previous 30-day period.

2 Nov 2009

NANOOS: Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems

This Pacific Northwest regional association is a partnership of information producers and users allied to manage coastal ocean observing systems for the benefit of stakeholders and the public. NANOOS is creating customized information and tools for Washington, Oregon, and Northern California.

1 Jan 2004

More Projects

Videos

VOICES of NANOOS Celebrating 20 Years of Collaboration & Innovation

NANOOS has served the citizenry of the Pacific Northwest by integrating ocean observing assets, data management systems, and models to yield information products that diverse coastal communities use to ensure safety, to build economic resilience, and to increase understanding of the coastal ocean.

Reflecting on the history of NANOOS, we wanted to tell the story through all the people who make up NANOOS — partners and folks who use our products. Listen to their voices.

17 Aug 2023

Ocean Acidification: Co-designing data connections to underserved communities for equitable outcomes

A global collaborative team advances momentum around science-based innovative solutions related to global ocean action within the United Nation's sustainable development goals.

More Info

27 Jul 2022

The Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network (GOA-ON) program for Ocean Acidification Research and Sustainability (OARS) raises local voices, especially those of indigenous, small island, and developing states that depend on ocean-based economies for survival. Now over 900 scientists from 100 nations are co-designing activities for adaptation and response strategies on local scales to advance United Nations sustainability goals.
More: www.goa-on.org/oars/overview.php

Backyard Buoys: Equipping Underserved Communities with Ocean Intelligence Platforms

Backyard Buoys is a new community-led project funded by the National Science Foundation's Convergence Accelerator program. This critical initiative empowers Indigenous coastal communities to collect and use ocean data to bolster maritime activities, food security, and coastal hazard protection. Oceanographic buoys deployed in Alaska, the Pacific Islands, and along the Washington coast, will provide accessible and actionable ocean data that bridges to Indigenous knowledge via a web-based application. Post-deployment, a sustainable and Indigenous community-led stewardship program will oversee management of the buoys.

15 Jun 2022

More Videos

Publications

2000-present and while at APL-UW

Sensitivity of pteropod calcification to multi stressor variability in coastal habitats

Bednarsek, N., G. Pelletier, K. Kimoto, P. MacCready, T. Klinger, and J. Newton, "Sensitivity of pteropod calcification to multi stressor variability in coastal habitats," Mar. Environ. Res., 204, doi:10.1016/j.marenvres.2024.106868, 2025.

More Info

1 Feb 2025

Comprehensive understanding of environmental multiple stressors on calcification in marine calcifiers remains an important topic of study, especially under ocean global change associated with multiple stressors. We explore the impact of multiple stressor on pteropod calcification in the southern Salish Sea (Washington, U.S.), a coastal estuarine system that exhibits a high degree of spatial and temporal variability in multiple environmental parameters across sampling locations. We hypothesized that such variability is associated with differences in pteropod calcification. Shell thickness and shell density across pteropod life history stages was compared with high-resolution outputs from a realistic model of regional circulation and biogeochemistry to explore how the mean and variability of multiple stressors (aragonite saturation state, temperature, food availability) influence calcification. We found that both the mean and variability in multiple stressors play a major role in calcification in pteropods, with a generalized linear model explaining more than 60% of the variance. We suggest two different modes of shell building: stable conditions of lower mean aragonite saturation state trigger the loss of shell thickness and density. In the more variable habitats, i.e., where the variability occurs over diel and seasonal scales, shell thickness increases at higher aragonite saturation state variability and greater food availability, which might partially compensate for the loss of shell density. This plastic response appears to be consistent across life stages and could represent a response mechanism that allows some compensatory calcification under less favourable conditions. However, compensation is very limited, as evident by lower shell growth resulting in shell sizes comparable to early life stages. These results substantially improve the understanding of the variability in multiple stressors on the calcification process under multiple stressors and provide a foundation for the development of two new proxies for calcification monitoring, and with implications for marine carbon dioxide removal strategies.

Seasonality and response of ocean acidification and hypoxia to major environmental anomalies in the southern Salish Sea, North America (2014–2018)

Alin, S.R., J.A. Newton, R.A. Feely, S. Siedlecki, and D. Greeley, "Seasonality and response of ocean acidification and hypoxia to major environmental anomalies in the southern Salish Sea, North America (2014–2018)," Biogeosciences, 21, 1639-1673, doi:10.5194/bg-21-1639-2024, 2024.

More Info

4 Apr 2024

Coastal and estuarine ecosystems fringing the North Pacific Ocean are particularly vulnerable to ocean acidification, hypoxia, and intense marine heatwaves as a result of interactions among natural and anthropogenic processes. Here, we characterize variability during a seasonally resolved cruise time series (2014–2018) in the southern Salish Sea (Puget Sound, Strait of Juan de Fuca) and nearby coastal waters for select physical (temperature, T; salinity, S) and biogeochemical (oxygen, O2; carbon dioxide fugacity, fCO2; aragonite saturation state) parameters. Medians for some parameters peaked (T, aragonite) in surface waters in summer, whereas others (S, O2, fCO2) changed progressively across spring–fall, and all parameters changed monotonically or were relatively stable at depth. Ranges varied considerably for all parameters across basins within the study region, with stratified basins consistently the most variable. Strong environmental anomalies occurred during the time series, allowing us to also qualitatively assess how these anomalies affected seasonal patterns and interannual variability. The peak temperature anomaly associated with the 2013–2016 northeast Pacific marine heatwave–El Niño event was observed in boundary waters during the October 2014 cruise, but Puget Sound cruises revealed the largest temperature increases during the 2015–2016 timeframe. The most extreme hypoxia and acidification measurements to date were recorded in Hood Canal (which consistently had the most extreme conditions) during the same period; however, they were shifted earlier in the year relative to previous events. During autumn 2017, after the heat anomaly, a distinct carbonate system anomaly with unprecedentedly low aragonite values and high fCO2 values occurred in parts of the southern Salish Sea that are not normally so acidified. This novel "CO2 storm" appears to have been driven by anomalously high river discharge earlier in 2017, which resulted in enhanced stratification and inferred primary productivity anomalies, indicated by persistently and anomalously high O2, low fCO2, and high chlorophyll. Unusually, this CO2 anomaly was decoupled from O2 dynamics compared with past Salish Sea hypoxia and acidification events. The complex interplay of weather, hydrological, and circulation anomalies revealed distinct multi-stressor scenarios that will potentially affect regional ecosystems under a changing climate. Further, the frequencies at which Salish cruise observations crossed known or preliminary species' sensitivity thresholds illustrates the relative risk landscape of temperature, hypoxia, and acidification anomalies in the southern Salish Sea in the present day, with implications for how multiple stressors may combine to present potential migration, survival, or physiological challenges to key regional species.

Phenotypic plasticity and carryover effects in an ecologically important bivalve in response to changing environments

Alma, L., P. McElhany, R.N. Crim, J.A. Newton, M. Maher, J.B. Mickett, and J.L. Padilla-Gamino, "Phenotypic plasticity and carryover effects in an ecologically important bivalve in response to changing environments," Front. Mar. Sci., 11, doi:10.3389/fmars.2024.1178507, 2024.

More Info

13 Mar 2024

Phenotypic plasticity can improve an organism’s fitness when exposed to novel environmental conditions or stress associated with climate change. Our study analyzed spatiotemporal differences in phenotypic plasticity and offspring performance in Olympia oysters Ostrea lurida. This species is an ecosystem engineer and is of great interest for commercial and restoration aquaculture. We used a multidisciplinary approach to examine acute and long-term physiological differences in O. lurida in response to in situ oceanographic conditions in a dynamic inland sea. We outplanted oysters to different areas in Puget Sound, Washington, affixing cages to anchor lines of oceanographic monitoring buoys. This allowed us to couple high-resolution oceanographic data with organism's phenotypic response. To assess spatiotemporal differences in oyster physiological performance, we collected oysters after six-months and one year of acclimatization at four field sites. During each collection period we evaluated changes in shell properties, diet, metabolism, and reproduction. Adult growth, δ13°C and δ15°N isotopic signatures, and gametogenesis were affected by both seasonal and environmental conditions. In the winter, oysters from all sites had higher respiration rates when exposed to acute thermal stress, and lower respiration response to acute pH stress. Lipid content, sex ratio and shell strength were unchanged across locations. Offspring growth rates between sites at experimental temperature 20°C closely reflected parental growth rate patterns. Offspring survival was not correlated with growth rates suggesting different energetic trade-offs in oyster offspring. The metabolic response (respiration) of larvae reached its highest point at 20°C but sharply decreased at 25°C. This indicates that larvae are more sensitive to temperature stress, as adults did not exhibit a reduction in metabolic response at 25°C. By deploying genetically similar oysters into distinct environments and employing a wide range of physiological methodologies to examine performance and fitness, our results indicate that Olympia oysters exhibit a high degree of phenotypic plasticity and show evidence of parental carryover.

More Publications

In The News

UW Experts Offer Hot Takes on El Niño, Weather and Ocean Temperatures

UW News

FIve UW researchers comment on the current El Niño, its effect on weather in the Pacific Northwest, as well as on regional and global ocean temperature trends.

25 Oct 2023

An ocean heat wave comes to Pacific Northwest shores

KUOW-FM (radio), John Ryan

Water temperatures in much of the world hit record highs this year but northwest coastal waters bucked that trend until the past few weeks. A heat wave that stayed far out in the Pacific Ocean has come ashore.

1 Aug 2023

Northwest waters buck global heating trend (for now)

KUOW, John Ryan

The seas of the world have been warming for decades as atmospheric pollution traps more heat both in the air and underwater. Much of the U.S. West Coast is bucking the global trend this spring, with sea water staying cooler than its 30-year average.

5 May 2023

More News Items

Acoustics Air-Sea Interaction & Remote Sensing Center for Environmental & Information Systems Center for Industrial & Medical Ultrasound Electronic & Photonic Systems Ocean Engineering Ocean Physics Polar Science Center
Close

 

Close