The recent NOAA Ocean Podcost, Picking the Right Spot: Offshore Wind Energy, features NOAAscience of how to use marine biogeography - the study of marine species, the geographic distribution of their habitats, and the relationships between living organisms and the environment - to help locate the best locationsto place potential future alternative energy sites in the ocean. NCCOS scientists, Bryan Costa and Matt Kendall, were interviewed about their recent work, a Marine Biogeographic Assessment of the Main Hawaiian Islands.

This map shows where humpback whales have been sighted and where they are predicted to be in the winter.

The podcast covers many aspects of NCCOS and NOAA's involvement in providing multipletypes of data that inform the complex process of offshore wind energy siting.

For more information, please contact Bryan.Costa@noaa.gov or Matt.Kendall@noaa.gov.