Carolina Weatherall

On Tuesday, Dr. Tessa Hill spoke to a crowd of Bowdoin and Brunswick community members in Kresge Auditorium about changing oceans due to climate change. The talk focused on Hill’s recently published book, “At Every Depth: Our Growing Knowledge of the Changing Oceans,” which she co-authored with Eric Simmons.

Professor Michèle LaVigne, Chair of the Earth and Oceanographic Science Department, introduced Hill, who is a professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and the Associate Vice Provost in Public Scholarship and Engagement at the University of California (UC), Davis.

Hill first discussed a paper written in 1995 by Jim Barry, Chuck Baxter, Rafe Sagarin and Sarah Gilman on the changing species in the tidepools of Monterey, Calif. The study was built upon the work of  Willis Hewitt’s 1935 dissertation on the species found in plots in the tidepools.

“[Hewitt] couldn’t have possibly known the message that he had left for future generations, the value of what we now call baseline data in their 1995 article,” Hill said.

The 1995 study found increases in the presence of eight warm water species and decreases in the presence of three cold water species, coinciding with temperature increase in the Monterey waters over many decades due to climate change.

“The lesson of this story was built upon some of the smallest inhabitants of the tide pools, and yet it carried a big headline,” Hill said. “Scientists, especially those observing the ocean, didn’t have to wait to document the impacts of climate change, because the ocean species were already on the move.”

Hill then delved into the story which makes up much of the first chapter of “At Every Depth”, about artist Linda Yamane, a Rumsen Ohlone tribe member from the Central California coast near Monterey. Yamane rediscovered much of her culture through an archive. Hill connected her story to the importance of observation in a changing world and the beauty of the past, similar to the story of Barry and his colleagues’ exploration of the tide pools of Monterey.

“[Yamane] told us that it takes tremendous foresight to record and document those observations, and that she sees herself as creating new beauty out of old knowledge,” Hill said. “Yamane and Barry and his colleagues were observant enough to know that lessons from the past can help us shape and understand the future and that sometimes we don’t know why we are steadfastly observing but that we hope that someone will pick up that archive like a message and model and use it.”

Hill outlined three themes that come through in the book: connection, knowledge of all types and inspired action.

“Eric and I worked for several years on this book, with a shared goal of helping forge a stronger reconnection between people and the ocean,” Hill said.

Hill focused the rest of her talk on the successful efforts to revitalize the white abalone species, which had been overfished to the point of near extinction by the early 2000s. Scientists brought the few remaining white abalone into a lab in Southern California and successfully induced reproduction. However, the white abalone babies kept dying due to a pathogen linked to warming waters. In 2012, scientists decided to move them north to the UC Davis lab where Hill works, which worked better due to the colder waters. Scientists began to reintroduce the white abalones back to their home habitats in 2019.

“This story is one of wild success. There are tens of thousands of baby white abalone born every year in this facility,” Hill said. “There are more white abalone in the building that I work in than there are in the whole ocean by a very large amount.”

Hill concluded her talk with a call to action, drawing inspiration from marine biologist and writer Rachel Carson.

“So I will end today asking all of us to think about what we are willing to do with our connection to the ocean, what we are willing to act on,… [and] how we are willing to fight for the ocean that we feel so strongly about,” Hill said.

Christian Sullivan ’26, an Earth and Oceanographic Science major, attended the talk and appreciated Hill’s stories about how Indigenous knowledge relates to oceanographic science as well the power of wonder in science.

“I studied abroad last semester in New Zealand, and they did a really good job of integrating oceanography and Indigenous knowledge. It was really interesting to hear Dr. Hill’s perspective on that,” Sullivan said. “I think the overall message of joy-inspired science and having observation and wonder shines very well.”