Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) is the center for
oceanography
Oceanography (), also known as oceanology, sea science, ocean science, and marine science, is the scientific study of the ocean, including its physics, chemistry, biology, and geology.
It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of to ...
and
Earth science
Earth science or geoscience includes all fields of natural science related to the planet Earth. This is a branch of science dealing with the physical, chemical, and biological complex constitutions and synergistic linkages of Earth's four spheres ...
at the
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...
. Its main campus is located in
La Jolla
La Jolla ( , ) is a hilly, seaside neighborhood in San Diego, California, occupying of curving coastline along the Pacific Ocean. The population reported in the 2010 census was 46,781. The climate is mild, with an average daily temperature o ...
, with additional facilities in
Point Loma.
Founded in 1903 and incorporated into the
University of California
The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...
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.
History
Founding
Scripps Institution of Oceanography can trace its beginnings back to
William Ritter, a
biologist
A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...
originally from
Wisconsin
Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...
. In 1891, Ritter was offered a job teaching biology at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
and married
Mary Bennett.
Their honeymoon and subsequent biological studies took them to
San Diego
San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...
, where Ritter met a local physician and naturalist,
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
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
Ellen Browning Scripps (October 18, 1836 – August 3, 1932) was an American journalist and philanthropist who was the founding donor of several major institutions in Southern California. She and her half-brother E. W. Scripps, E.W. Scripps creat ...
and 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 site in La Jolla, north of San Diego. The land was purchased for $1,000 at a
public auction
A government auction or a public auction is an auction held on behalf of a government in which the property to be auctioned is either property owned by the government or property which is sold under the authority of a court of law or a governmen ...
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. The 85-foot ''Alexander Agassiz'', a sailing vessel with twin gasoline engines, served the institution for ten years.
In 1912, the Biological Association became incorporated into the
University of California
The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...
and was renamed the Scripps Institution for Biological Research.
The first iteration of 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
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
. 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 . 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 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
A diatom (Neo-Latin ''diatoma'') is any member of a large group comprising several Genus, genera of algae, specifically microalgae, found in the oceans, waterways and soils of the world. Living diatoms make up a significant portion of Earth's B ...
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
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...
.
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 World War II 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
Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigate, measure distances ( ranging), communicate with or detect objects o ...
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
Walter Heinrich Munk (October 19, 1917 – February 8, 2019) was an American physical oceanographer. He was one of the first scientists to bring statistical methods to the analysis of oceanographic data. Munk worked on a wide range of topics, i ...
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
Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...
, and
in the Pacific. SIO's UCDWR would train over 200 American and British military officers on swell forecasting techniques throughout the war.
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.
Though Sverdrup's family became US citizens during the war, he struggled with Navy clearance which gave him an awkward relationship to the projects he was overseeing.
Wartime changed the funding dynamic for Scripps. Prior to the war, the only federal support for SIO came from the Navy seeking to protect the hulls of their ships.
Threatened by
German submarines, concepts within physical oceanography were researched for
submarine warfare
Submarine warfare is one of the four divisions of underwater warfare, the others being anti-submarine warfare, Naval mine, mine warfare and Naval mine, mine countermeasures.
Submarine warfare consists primarily of Diesel engine, diesel and nu ...
.
By summer 1942,
Roger Revelle was appointed as a Navy liaison for oceanography and the sonar head of the Navy Bureau of Ships. UCDWR research led to rapid development of
bathythermographs, as well as the understanding of the
thermocline
A thermocline (also known as the thermal layer or the metalimnion in lakes) is
a distinct layer based on temperature within a large body of fluid (e.g. water, as in an ocean or lake; or air, e.g. an atmosphere) with a high gradient of distinct te ...
and
benthic sediments in the context of underwater warfare.
Research on
biofouling
Biofouling or biological fouling is the accumulation of microorganisms, plants, algae, or small animals where it is not wanted on surfaces such as ship and submarine hulls, devices such as water inlets, pipework, grates, ponds, and rivers that ...
organisms were led by Dennis Fox and Claude ZoBell, with the goal to develop biological deterrents for seaplanes and vessels.
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.
Tseng took red algae samples of
Gelidium cartilagineum and cultured them to reduce the US dependence on Japanese
agar
Agar ( or ), or agar-agar, is a jelly-like substance consisting of polysaccharides obtained from the cell walls of some species of red algae, primarily from " ogonori" and " tengusa". As found in nature, agar is a mixture of two components, t ...
, which was important to hospitals at the time.
The Golden Age of Oceanography
Following the war,
Roger Revelle continued to act as a liaison for oceanographers and was consulted during
Operation Crossroads
Operation Crossroads was a pair of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946. They were the first nuclear weapon tests since Trinity on July 16, 1945, and the first detonations of nuclear devices sinc ...
in 1945.
He noted significant difficulties during the project, stemming from the difficulty of civilian research to access naval research vessels and naval bureaucracy. To remedy this, Revelle championed joint research of the newly-established
Office of Naval Research (ONR), the
US Hydrographic Office, and Navy Bureau of Ships and Scripps was receiving around $900,000 annually from federal funding.
The Navy bestowed the operation of 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 .
These vessels, combined with the overlap of expertise from the ONR in 1946, provided additional resources for ocean exploration. The three new vessels were put to work on the new Marine Life Research Program in 1950 (now
CalCOFI), which sought to investigate the collapse of the California sardine population. In doing so, approximately of ocean would need to be surveyed.
When
Aqua-Lung was made available in the US in 1948,
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...
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 Carl Hubbs) and began the Scripps Diving Program.
Roger Revelle took over the director role at SIO in 1951 from Carl Eckart and, following a diving fatality at La Jolla in 1950, 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
The Underwater Demolition Team (UDT), or frogmen, were amphibious units created by the United States Navy during World War II with specialized missions. They were predecessors of the Navy's current United States Navy SEAL, SEAL teams.
Their pri ...
.
It was also during this time that
Hugh Bradner
Hugh Bradner (November 5, 1915 – May 5, 2008) was an American physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, University of California who is credited with inventing the neoprene wetsuit, which helped to revolutionize scuba diving and sur ...
, a physicist at
UC Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...
, became an advisor at SIO and developed the
wetsuit in 1952. 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 Vaughan Aquarium-Museum opened at the University's Charter Day in March 1951 to replace the prior aquarium, which had been in a consistent state of disrepair since at least 1925.
Named to honor former institution director T. Wayland Vaughan, museum curator Percy S. Barnhart planned a replacement up until his retirement in 1946, passing the project along to Sam Hinton. Hinton would go on to collect specimens aboard the ''E. W. Scripps'' until the building was completed and occupied in 1950. While nearly three times the size of the previous aquarium, the building also housed the director's offices on the second floor and the preserved specimens in the basement. The seawater supply from Scripps Pier was renovated in 1964 to increase capacity and improve
filtration
Filtration is a physical separation process that separates solid matter and fluid from a mixture using a ''filter medium'' that has a complex structure through which only the fluid can pass. Solid particles that cannot pass through the filte ...
.
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 Revelle spearheaded the formation of the University of California, San Diego in 1960 on a bluff overlooking the Scripps Institution, with SIO acting as the nucleus.
It was during the 1960s that SIO led the development of the
Deep-Tow system, with oceanographer Fred Spiess as the lead of the Marine Physical Laboratory.
The purpose was to map the oceans, most notably being used in
Project FAMOUS between 1971 and 1974.
In 1965, Scripps began leasing of land in Point Loma to tie up research vessels, including the
RP ''Flip'' (launched in 1962), 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.
Also in 1965, Scripps assisted the Navy with the
SEALAB
SEALAB I, II, and III were experimental underwater habitats developed and deployed by the United States Navy during the 1960s to prove the viability of saturation diving and humans living in isolation for extended periods of time. The knowledge ...
project, where divers dwelled in a submersible habitat at in the nearby
Scripps Canyon for 15 days at a time.
On October 25, 1973, ''California Sea Grant'' became a college (
National Sea Grant College Program
The National Sea Grant College Program is a program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) within the U.S. Department of Commerce. It is a national network of 34 university-based Sea Grant programs involved in scientific ...
) administered by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...
.
From March to May of 1979, SIO directed the
RISE project and oversaw the 1979 discovery of black smoker
hydrothermal vent
Hydrothermal vents are fissures on the seabed from which geothermally heated water discharges. They are commonly found near volcanically active places, areas where tectonic plates are moving apart at mid-ocean ridges, ocean basins, and hot ...
s at the
East Pacific Rise
The East Pacific Rise (EPR) is a mid-ocean rise (usually termed an oceanic rise and not a mid-ocean ridge due to its higher rate of spreading that results in less elevation increase and more regular terrain), at a divergent tectonic plate bound ...
.
International projects and modern history
The
Old Scripps Building, designed by
Irving Gill, was declared a
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a National Register of Historic Places property types, building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the Federal government of the United States, United States government f ...
in 1982.
[ and ] Architect
Barton Myers
Barton Myers (born November 6, 1934) is an American architect and president of Barton Myers Associates Inc. in Santa Barbara, California. With a career spanning more than 40 years, Myers is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects and wa ...
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 . The vessel operated from September 2014 to December 2015 on 100% biofuels which reduced
nitrous oxide
Nitrous oxide (dinitrogen oxide or dinitrogen monoxide), commonly known as laughing gas, nitrous, or factitious air, among others, is a chemical compound, an Nitrogen oxide, oxide of nitrogen with the Chemical formula, formula . At room te ...
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.
Also, 2014 was 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 the
World Ocean Circulation Experiment, which ran until 2002. 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 research vessel, named after
John Beyster and his wife Betty. Though the vessel was secured in spring of 2019, plans for the vessel's acquisition began in 2017.
From January to May of 2019, SIO directed a study at
Imperial Beach to collect samples of sewage pollution from the
Tijuana River and found elevated levels of harmful bacteria and aerosols. In 2024, Scripps was added to a task force including researchers from
San Diego State University
San Diego State University (SDSU) is a Public university, public research university in San Diego, California, United States. Founded in 1897, it is the third-oldest university and southernmost in the 23-member California State University (CS ...
and regional doctors to better understand health impacts from the pollution. While collecting samples later in 2024, the task force had to evacuate the area due to elevated levels of toxic gases.
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
''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus".
In some c ...
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 three 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. 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.
Campus
Main campus

The SIO main campus is located in
La Jolla
La Jolla ( , ) is a hilly, seaside neighborhood in San Diego, California, occupying of curving coastline along the Pacific Ocean. The population reported in the 2010 census was 46,781. The climate is mild, with an average daily temperature o ...
, situated between
La Jolla Shores and
Black's Beach
Black's Beach is a secluded section of beach beneath the bluffs of Torrey Pines on the Pacific Ocean in La Jolla, a community of San Diego, California. It is officially part of Torrey Pines State Beach. The northern portion of Black's Beach i ...
. La Jolla Shores Drive provides access to greater La Jolla to the south, while continuing north through campus to the main UC San Diego campus.
Mass transit service to the main campus is handled by
MTS line 30 (coming every 15 minutes) and UC San Diego's SIO bus route (every 10 minutes). Route 30 has stops exclusively on La Jolla Shores Drive, heading north to
UTC Transit Center and south to
Old Town Transit Center. The SIO route offers more comprehensive coverage of campus grounds, starting in Pawka Green, then La Jolla Shores Drive, Shellback Way, Birch Aquarium, and then north to 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 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, 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.
Campus flora and fauna
The main campus in La Jolla is situated next to the
San Diego-Scripps Coastal Marine Conservation Area as well as
Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve
Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve is a coastal state park in San Diego, California. The reserve is one of the wildest stretches of land on the Southern California coast, covering . It is bordered immediately to the south by Torrey Pines Golf Co ...
.
The coastal
chaparral
Chaparral ( ) is a shrubland plant plant community, community found primarily in California, southern Oregon, and northern Baja California. It is shaped by a Mediterranean climate (mild wet winters and hot dry summers) and infrequent, high-intens ...
biome
A biome () is a distinct geographical region with specific climate, vegetation, and animal life. It consists of a biological community that has formed in response to its physical environment and regional climate. In 1935, Tansley added the ...
has many plants also seen in the Torrey Pines reserve, such as
lemonade berry,
wild cucumber,
coast spice bush,
California sunflower,
California buckwheat, and
bladderpod.
Seabirds are a common sight near the campus, particularly
seagulls,
pelicans,
plover
Plovers ( , ) are members of a widely distributed group of wader, wading birds of subfamily Charadriinae. The term "plover" applies to all the members of the subfamily, though only about half of them include it in their name.
Species lis ...
s,
egret
Egrets ( ) are herons, generally long-legged wading birds, that have white or buff plumage, developing fine plumes (usually milky white) during the breeding season. Egrets are not a biologically distinct group from herons and have the same build ...
s, and
osprey
The osprey (; ''Pandion haliaetus''), historically known as sea hawk, river hawk, and fish hawk, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey with a cosmopolitan range. It is a large raptor, reaching more than in length and a wingspan of . It ...
.
Peregrine falcon
The peregrine falcon (''Falco peregrinus''), also known simply as the peregrine, is a Cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan bird of prey (raptor) in the family (biology), family Falconidae renowned for its speed. A large, Corvus (genus), cro ...
s are also known to nest in the bluffs at the north end of campus.
= Marine life
=
Marine life from La Jolla Shores to Black's Beach can be seen very shallow, making
snorkeling a popular activity. Marine organisms include
leopard shark
The leopard shark (''Triakis semifasciata'') is a species of houndshark, in the family (biology), family Houndshark, Triakidae. It is found along the Pacific coast of North America, from the U.S. state of Oregon to Mazatlán in Mexico. Typically ...
s,
Garibaldi,
shovelnose guitarfish,
round stingrays, and
thornback rays.
Due to the high concentration of stingrays, locals practice the "stingray shuffle" to help avoid
being stung.
Connecting to La Jolla Canyon,
Scripps Canyon is a popular spot for divers and marine research. Common fish within the canyon are species of
poacher,
sole,
rockfish, and
lizardfish.
Nimitz Marine Facility
The Nimitz Marine Facility is the home port of all SIO research vessels and is accessible by land via Rosecrans Street in Point Loma. The facility is serviced hourly by bus route 84 of the San Diego MTS, running from the Navy Base to
Shelter Island and
Cabrillo National Monument.
The facility borders the
Point Loma Navy Base, operated by the
NIWC. As of 2008, a
TWIC card is required for access to the waterfront at MarFac as required by the
United States Coast Guard
The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and Admiralty law, law enforcement military branch, service branch of the armed forces of the United States. It is one of the country's eight Uniformed services ...
.
Buildings at the Nimitz Marine Facility are numbered in increasing order from the waterfront approaching Rosecrans Street.
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
In mathematics, a time series is a series of data points indexed (or listed or graphed) in time order. Most commonly, a time series is a sequence taken at successive equally spaced points in time. Thus it is a sequence of discrete-time data. ...
of atmospheric CO
2, beginning in 1958. Spearheaded by
Charles David Keeling, SIO established a research center in
Mauna Loa,
Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...
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
Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...
.
Argo program
The Argo program is an international effort to survey ocean temperature, salinity, and currents. The program was developed in the late 1990s and chaired by SIO's
Dean Roemmich and SIO researchers helped design the SOLO and SOLO-II float designs.
SIO is also involved in Argo-related programs, such as GO-BGC (
biogeochemical) and
SOCCOM, and hosts Argo data on the Argo Global Marine Atlas.
Oceanographic collections
SIO maintains a large collection of
marine and
benthic
The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean, lake, or stream, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers. The name comes from the Ancient Greek word (), meaning "the depths". ...
organism collections, tracing back to William Ritter's samples from 1902. When
ichthyologist
Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, including bony fish (Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jawless fish (Agnatha). According to FishBase, 35,800 species of fish had been described as of March 2 ...
Carl Hubbs arrived at SIO in 1944, the collections grew rapidly and expanded by around 9,000 samples in 2014 when SIO inherited collections from
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...
's Department of Ecology. SIO also has a geological collection of thousands of
ocean cores, sea dredge hauls,
microfossil slides, and rock samples.
Collection samples are commonly used for instruction at SIO and for public outreach at
Birch Aquarium.
Organizational structure
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 Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Vice Chancellor for Marine Sciences, and Dean of the Graduate School of Marine Sciences on October 1, 2013.
List of 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
Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...
-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)
*
Farooq Azam
*
George Backus
*
Ernest Baldwin
*
Andrew Benson
*
Hugh Bradner
Hugh Bradner (November 5, 1915 – May 5, 2008) was an American physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, University of California who is credited with inventing the neoprene wetsuit, which helped to revolutionize scuba diving and sur ...
*
Edward Brinton
*
Theodore Holmes Bullock
*
Ralph J. Cicerone
*
Robert W. Corell
*
Harmon Craig
*
Paul J. Crutzen
*
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
*
Sam Hinton
*
Linda Holland
*
Nicholas D. Holland
*
Carl Hubbs
*
Douglas Inman
*
John Dove Isaacs
*
Jeremy Jackson
*
Martin W. Johnson
*
Thomas H. Jordan
Thomas H. Jordan is an American seismologist, and former director (2002–2017) of the Southern California Earthquake Center at the University of Southern California. He was formerly the head of the Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences D ...
*
Miriam Kastner
*
Charles David Keeling
*
Ralph Keeling
*Charles Kennel
*Nancy Knowlton
*Lisa Levin
*Ralph A. Lewin
*Michael S. Longuet-Higgins
*Edwin P. Martz
*Henry William Menard
*Mario J. Molina
*John W. Miles
*B. Greg Mitchell
*Judith Munk
*
Walter Munk
Walter Heinrich Munk (October 19, 1917 – February 8, 2019) was an American physical oceanographer. He was one of the first scientists to bring statistical methods to the analysis of oceanographic data. Munk worked on a wide range of topics, i ...
*Jerome Namias
*William Nierenberg
*Pearn P. Niiler
*Stewart Nozette
*Veerabhadran Ramanathan
*
Roger Revelle
*William Emerson Ritter
*
Dean Roemmich
*Richard Heinrich Rosenblatt
*Enric Sala
*Hans Suess
*Francis Parker Shepard
*Cornelius Cole Smith, Jr.
*Richard Somerville
*Fred Spiess
*Janet Sprintall
*George Sugihara
*
Harald Sverdrup
*Lynne Talley
*Warren White (oceanographer), Warren White
*Klaus Wyrtki
*Victor Vacquier
*Benjamin Elazari Volcani
*
Shang-Ping Xie
*William R. Young (oceanographer), William R. Young
Notable alumni
*Tanya Atwater
*Thomas Elliot Bowman III, Thomas E. Bowman III
*
Edward Brinton
*Stephen E. Calvert
*Kim Cobb
*Jack Corliss
*John M. Edmond
*Kenneth Farley
*Michael Freilich (NASA), Michael Freilich
*Susan M. Gaines
*Timothy Gallaudet
*Eric Giddens
*Susan Hough
*Ancel Keys
*Megan McArthur
*James J. McCarthy
*Marcia McNutt
*Jessica Meir
*
Walter Munk
Walter Heinrich Munk (October 19, 1917 – February 8, 2019) was an American physical oceanographer. He was one of the first scientists to bring statistical methods to the analysis of oceanographic data. Munk worked on a wide range of topics, i ...
*Wheeler J. North
*Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara
*Colm Ó hEocha
*Joseph Richard Pawlik, Joseph R. Pawlik
*George Perry (neuroscientist), George Perry
*S. K. Satheesh
*Brinke Stevens
*Christopher Stott
*Brian Tucker (seismologist), Brian Tucker
Awards by SIO
SIO confers a number of awards for scientific advancement or betterment of society.
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 (U.S. TV series), ''The Newsroom''. In 2008, Scripps Institution of Oceanography was the subject of a category on the TV game show ''Jeopardy!''.
See also
* Array Network Facility
*
RISE project
* Scripps Research, a neighboring, but completely independent medical research institute
* Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, a private, non-profit oceanographic research center in Moss Landing, California
* Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, a multi-campus marine research consortium of the California State University System
* Hopkins Marine Station, a similar research facility run by Stanford University in Monterey, California
* Hatfield Marine Science Center, a similar research facility associated with the Oregon State University and located in Newport, Oregon, Newport, Oregon
* Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a similar research facility located in Woods Hole, Massachusetts
References
Further reading
''Scripps Institution of Oceanography; First Fifty Years''Helen Raitt and Beatrice Moulton. Los Angeles : W. Ritchie Press, 1967.
''Scripps Institution of Oceanography : Probing the Oceans, 1936 to 1976''Elizabeth Noble Shor. San Diego, Calif. : Tofua Press, 1978.
*Keeling curve, The Keeling Curve Turns 50
External links
Official website
{{Authority control
Scripps Institution of Oceanography,
Oceanographic organizations
Research institutes in California
University of California, San Diego
Culture of San Diego
Landmarks in San Diego
Organizations based in San Diego
La Jolla, San Diego
National Register of Historic Places in San Diego
Scripps family
Barton Myers buildings
1903 establishments in California