Disentangling climate signals in coastal waters: a 25-year time series perspective on Puget Sound

State-wide, long-term marine monitoring programs provide valuable insights into climate signals within coastal and estuarine systems. Puget Sound is a deep urban fjord of the Salish Sea in the northwestern United States and is situated between a productive upwelling system and climate-responsive snow and rain-fed mountain river systems. Twenty-five years of monthly marine monitoring data collected by the Washington State Dept. of Ecology illustrate ongoing and predicted consequences of increasingly earlier snow-fed river discharge and shifting offshore wind conditions on Puget Sound and adjacent coastal waters. These observations highlight that intercomparison of discrete coastal climate events and long-term trend analysis necessitates resolving regional physical dynamics that drive local variability through changes in riverine and offshore boundary conditions.