About

Bruce Anderson is a professor in the Department of Earth & Environment at Boston University. His research focuses on global and regional climate change, atmospheric dynamics and hydrology, large-scale ocean and atmosphere interactions, regional impacts of climate variability, and climate/land-surface/vegetation interactions and monitoring. He holds a Ph.D. from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, obtained in 1998. Professor Anderson teaches courses including Climate & the Environment, Physical Climatology, and Dynamical Oceanography. His work involves understanding complex climate systems and their regional and global impacts, contributing to the scientific understanding of climate variability and change.

Research topics

• Climatology
• Environmental science
• Geography
• Geology
• Environmental health
• Meteorology
• Medicine
• Mathematics
• Atmospheric sciences
• Oceanography
• Cartography

Selected publications

• ‘The fish that stop’: drivers of historical decline for Pacific cod and implications for modern management in an era of rapidly changing climate

  Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · 2025-07-10 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  ) biomass to the lowest abundance ever recorded and led to the fishery's closure in 2020. Although the fishery has been productive for decades, this collapse may have historical precedents. Traditional knowledge holders refer to cod as 'the fish that stop', and there is a suggested period of decline in the 1930s. Here we conduct a catch reconstruction of the early commercial fishery (1864-1950), confirming a rapid catch decline in the 1920s and 1930s. Next, we evaluate evidence for possible drivers. We document changes to demand and technology that contributed to declining catch. However, we also find both qualitative and quantitative evidence of depletion, suggesting catch declines were not driven entirely by social factors. Overfishing may have contributed to localized catch declines as evidenced by declining catch rates in heavily fished localities. We also find evidence for climate as a driver of regional decline, with the period of catch decline characterized by up to 2°C higher temperatures as compared to the earlier period of high fisheries production. Our analysis underscores the importance of understanding long-term drivers of fisheries productivity and the value of linking fisheries and climate histories.This article is part of the theme issue 'Shifting seas: understanding deep-time human impacts on marine ecosystems'.

  PublisherDOI

• Integrating marine historical ecology into management of Alaska’s Pacific cod fishery for climate readiness

  ICES Journal of Marine Science · 2025-04-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract The Pacific cod (Gadus macrocephalus) fishery was closed in 2020 after a rapid decline in biomass caused by the marine heat waves of 2014–2019. Pacific cod are exceptionally thermally sensitive and management of this fishery is now challenged by increasingly unpredictable climate conditions. Fisheries monitoring is critical for climate readiness, but short-term monitoring data may be inadequate for recognizing and anticipating change under rapid climate changes. We propose an interdisciplinary, marine historical ecology framework that looks to long-term records (local and traditional knowledge, history, archaeology, and paleoclimatology) to capture a long range of ecological variability and provide historical context for management. In order to connect to contemporary fisheries management, this framework must be built on a common vocabulary and an understanding of the key metrics used in fisheries stock assessments. Here, we propose metrics derived from Pacific cod stock assessment and synthesize information relevant to understanding the effects of past warming periods on cod populations across the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea. This case study provides a framework for thinking about how to use these historical records in the context of fisheries management under rapidly changing climate conditions.

  PublisherDOI

• Influence of Kuroshio Extension’s sea surface temperature variability on the North Pacific atmosphere and Pacific Decadal Precession

  Climate Dynamics · 2024-08-13

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Recent research has revealed links between a quasi-decadal mode of climate variability over the North Pacific – the Pacific Decadal Precession (PDP) – and the North Pacific’s western boundary current’s extension – the Kuroshio Extension (KE). It is suggested that on decadal time scales the PDP both responds to and influences the KE variability. A question yet to be answered is whether it is the large-scale or the mesoscale variations of the KE region that link with the PDP evolution. Using high-resolution sea surface temperature data (1981–2018) from the global ocean Operational Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and Sea Ice Analysis, low-resolution Extended Reconstructed SST (ERSST) version 3b data (1949–2018), geopotential height reanalysis data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) we find that it is the large-scale variations in the KE region that correlate best with the PDP-like response in the overlying and downstream atmosphere as compared to the mesoscale variations. In particular, the second mode of the large-scale KE region, which is characterized by the warming (cooling) of the ocean south (north) of the KE, sets up a PDP-like north-south atmospheric pressure dipole over the North Pacific Ocean by altering the large-scale baroclinicity of the atmosphere and zonal intensification of the subtropical jet stream. In turn, there is a reduction in the zonal propagation of stationary wave energy and an enhancement of the climatological zonal wave heights over North America, which results in a downstream response over the North American continent and the formation of a subsequent east-west pressure dipole over the North Pacific and North American continent. As a result, there is a strong correlation between large-scale SST variations in the KE region and the evolution of the PDP over the next three years.

  PublisherDOI

• A Link between The Kuroshio Extension, Marine Heatwaves, and Marine Ecosystems in the Gulf of Alaska

  Research Square · 2023-03-02

  preprintOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Northeast Pacific marine heatwaves linked to Kuroshio Extension variability

  Communications Earth & Environment · 2023-10-11 · 10 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Marine heatwave events in the Northeast Pacific Ocean from 2013-2015 and 2019-2020 have had significant impacts on ocean life and livelihoods in the region. Numerous studies have linked these marine heatwaves to known modes of climate variability. Here we show that the observed evolution of the 2013-2015 Northeast Pacific marine heatwave best correlates with the evolution of historical sea surface temperatures in response to variations in the Kuroshio Extension. By using ocean and atmospheric reanalysis data from 1981-2020 and ocean nutrient data from 1993-2020 from an ocean biogeochemistry model, we further report the physical and biogeochemical changes during this heat event and their relation to these same Kuroshio variations. Using these results, we propose an atmospheric teleconnection between Kuroshio Extension variations and Marine Heatwaves in the Northeast Pacific. This teleconnection’s influence further extends to the marine biogeochemistry and productivity in the Northeast Pacific region via Kuroshio-influenced modifications to mixed layer thickness.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Assessing the future influence of the North Pacific trade wind precursors on ENSO in the CMIP6 HighResMIP multimodel ensemble

  Climate Dynamics · 2023-10-17 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), as one of the largest coupled climate modes, influences the livelihoods of millions of people and ecosystems survival. Thus, how ENSO is expected to behave under the influence of anthropogenic climate change is a substantial question to investigate. In this paper, we analyze future predictions of specific traits of ENSO, in combination with a subset of well-established precursors—the Trade Wind Charging and North Pacific Meridional Mode (TWC/NPMM). We study it across three sets of experiments from a protocol-driven ensemble from CMIP6—the High Resolution Model Intercomparison Project (HighResMIP). Namely, (1) experiments at constant 1950’s radiative forcings, and (2) experiments of present (1950–2014) and (3) future (2015–2050) climate with prescribed increasing radiative forcings. We first investigate the current and predicted spatial characteristics of ENSO events, by calculating area, amplitude and longitude of the Center of Heat Index (CHI). We see that TWC/NPMM-charged events are consistently stronger, in both the presence and absence of external forcings; however, as anthropogenic forcings increase, the area of all ENSO events increases. Since the TWC/NPMM-ENSO relationship has been shown to affect the oscillatory behavior of ENSO, we analyze ENSO frequency by calculating CHI-analogous indicators on the Continuous Wavelet Transform (CWT) of its signal. With this new methodology, we show that across the ensemble, ENSO oscillates at different frequencies, and its oscillatory behavior shows different degrees of stochasticity, over time and across models. However, we see no consistent indication of future trends in the oscillatory behavior of ENSO and the TWC/NPMM-ENSO relationship.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Influence of Kuroshio Extension Variability on the North Pacific Atmosphere and Pacific Decadal Precession

  Research Square · 2023-06-23 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Web‐Based Data to Quantify Meteorological and Geographical Effects on Heat Stroke: Case Study in China

  GeoHealth · 2022 · 16 citations

  • Environmental science
  • Meteorology
  • Climatology

  Heat stroke is a serious heat-related health outcome that can eventually lead to death. Due to the poor accessibility of heat stroke data, the large-scale relationship between heat stroke and meteorological factors is still unclear. This work aims to clarify the potential relationship between meteorological variables and heat stroke, and quantify the meteorological threshold that affected the severity of heat stroke. We collected daily heat stroke search index (HSSI) and meteorological data for the period 2013-2020 in 333 Chinese cities to analyze the relationship between meteorological variables and HSSI using correlation analysis and Random forest (RF) model. Temperature and relative humidity (RH) accounted for 62% and 9% of the changes of HSSI, respectively. In China, cases of heat stroke may start to occur when temperature exceeds 36°C and RH exceeds 58%. This threshold was 34.5°C and 79% in the north of China, and 36°C and 48% in the south of China. Compared to RH, the threshold of temperature showed a more evident difference affected by altitude and distance from the ocean, which was 35.5°C in inland cities and 36.5°C in coastal cities; 35.5°C in high-altitude cities and 36°C in low-altitude cities. Our findings provide a possible way to analyze the interaction effect of meteorological variables on heat-related illnesses, and emphasizes the effects of geographical environment. The meteorological threshold quantified in this research can also support policymaker to establish a better meteorological warning system for public health.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Influence of Kuroshio Extension Variability on the North Pacific Atmosphere and Pacific Decadal Precession

  Research Square · 2022-03-21 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Modes and Mechanisms of Pacific Decadal-Scale Variability

  Annual Review of Marine Science · 2022 · 75 citations

  • Environmental science
  • Oceanography
  • Geography

  The modes of Pacific decadal-scale variability (PDV), traditionally defined as statistical patterns of variance, reflect to first order the ocean's integration (i.e., reddening) of atmospheric forcing that arises from both a shift and a change in strength of the climatological (time-mean) atmospheric circulation. While these patterns concisely describe PDV, they do not distinguish among the key dynamical processes driving the evolution of PDV anomalies, including atmospheric and ocean teleconnections and coupled feedbacks with similar spatial structures that operate on different timescales. In this review, we synthesize past analysis using an empirical dynamical model constructed from monthly ocean surface anomalies drawn from several reanalysis products, showing that the PDV modes of variance result from two fundamental low-frequency dynamical eigenmodes: the North Pacific–central Pacific (NP-CP) and Kuroshio–Oyashio Extension (KOE) modes. Both eigenmodes highlight how two-way tropical–extratropical teleconnection dynamics are the primary mechanisms energizing and synchronizing the basin-scale footprint of PDV. While the NP-CP mode captures interannual- to decadal-scale variability, the KOE mode is linked to the basin-scale expression of PDV on decadal to multidecadal timescales, including contributions from the South Pacific.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Extratropical Triggering of El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Events Through the Trade-Wind Charging Mechanism

  NSF · $307k · 2016–2021

• Inherent Predictability of Observed Seasonal Mean Precipitation Variations Over the Continental United States

  NSF · $405k · 2010–2014

Frequent coauthors

• Ranga B. Myneni

  Boston University

  30 shared

• Guido D. Salvucci

  24 shared

• Jason C. Furtado

  University of Oklahoma

  21 shared

• Daniel J. Short Gianotti

  Parsons (United States)

  17 shared

• Sangram Ganguly

  Ames Research Center

  13 shared

• Emanuele Di Lorenzo

  Providence College

  11 shared

• Robert K. Kaufmann

  Boston University

  11 shared

• John O. Roads

  Scripps Institution of Oceanography

  11 shared

Education

• Ph.D.

  Scripps Institution of Oceanography

  1998