A vibrant coral reef in the Maldives. Credit: Luiz Rocha, California Academy of Sciences.
In a paper published today in the journal Environmental Research Letters, an international research team composed of scientists affiliated with more than a dozen institutions, including the California Academy of Sciences, propose a first-of-its-kind framework for governments around the world to evaluate their preparedness for—and guide future policies to address—ocean acidification, among the most dire threats to marine ecosystems.
“Ocean acidification is one of climate change’s silent killers,” says Rebecca Albright, Ph.D., Academy Curator of Invertebrate Zoology and founder of the Coral Regeneration Lab (CoRL). “While not as high-profile as threats like coral bleaching, ocean acidification will cause widespread destruction of marine environments by the end of this decade if we don’t take urgent action. To help policymakers identify what actions they should take, my collaborators and I asked ourselves, ‘What would a government have to do in order to have a comprehensive plan to safeguard both the environment and society from ocean acidification?'”
Ultimately, the researchers identified six aspects of effective ocean acidification policy, along with specific indicators for each, that policymaking bodies, from local governments to federal agencies, can use to evaluate and guide their own policies.
…
California Academy of Sciences (via Phys.org), 28 March 2023. Article.
