This video covers the plenary presentations from a 2 hour discussion series session hosted by the Alaska Ocean Acidification Network on May 4, 2022 (session #4 of the series).
The topic was on ocean acidification mitigation and adaptation strategies, including in the context of Alaska.
Speakers included Jessica Cross (NOAA PMEL), Dorothy Childers (Alaska OA Network), and Chris Rose (Renewable Energy Alaska Program).
Following these presentations, participants split into breakout groups to discuss carbon policy, kelp and alkalinity enhancement.
To respond to the changing chemistry of the ocean, we’re conducting scientific monitoring and research in all coastal communities- not just in places that can afford it. Once we have systems in place, we fund tools and guide coastal communities to adapt to these changes.
This fun live lesson investigation aims to show how water becomes more acidic when carbon dioxide is bubbled through it. It demonstrates the link between carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and a process called ocean acidification, a change in the pH or acidity of the ocean.
Students will also observe over time the effects of acid on chalk (standing in as an example of animals with ‘chalky’ structures or skeletons).
This video covers the plenary presentations from a 2 hour discussion series hosted by the Alaska Ocean Acidification Network on April 20, 2022 (session #3 of the series).
The topic was on the impacts of ocean acidification on commercial species with a focus on crab, groundfish and salmon.
Speakers included Chris Long (NOAA Kodiak Laboratory), Tom Hurst (NOAA Hatfield Lab), and Marina Washburn (University of Alaska Fairbanks).
A virtual Townhall Meeting discussing the relationship between Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) and Ocean Acidification (OA).
Joined by experts in the fields of HABs and OA to discuss with our audience.
The featured speakers included Dr. Hans Paerl, Kenan Professor of Marine and EnvironmentalSciences at the University of North Carolina’s Institute of Marine Sciences and Dr. Tristyn Bercel, Postdoctoral Researcher at Mote Marine Laboratory.
These webinars provide the region’s stakeholders and interested parties with timely information on current and developing climate conditions such as drought, floods, and tropical storms, as well as climatic events like El Niño and La Niña.
Speakers may also discuss the impacts of these conditions on topics such as wildfires, agriculture production, disruption to water supply, and ecosystems.
The April 12 webinar featured a special presentation on “Acidification in the U.S. Southeast: Causes, Potential Consequences and the Role of the Southeast Ocean and Coastal Acidification Network.”
The global ocean has mediated the atmospheric CO2 increase derived from human activities by absorbing about 30% of the anthropogenic emissions since the industrial revolution. CO2 enters the surface ocean through air-sea gas exchange and its uptake rate is limited by the upper-ocean-to-interior transport, i.e., the large-scale dynamics that control the ventilation of the interior ocean. Hence, the high-latitude oceans, where deep convective overturning and subduction occur, are the areas of strongest CO2 uptake and deep-ocean CO2 sequestration. Amongst those high-latitude oceans, the North Atlantic is one of the most important CO2 sinks thanks to the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, where the deep-water formation provides the pathway for CO2 into the interior ocean. Here a database analysis is used to study the long-term trends in ocean acidification in the different water masses. I will also discuss the physical and chemical drivers of the ocean acidification and the expected changes for future increases in atmospheric CO2. Finally, I will present my Severo Ochoa postdoctoral project, which focuses on assessing the changes in alkalinity naturally occurring in the Mediterranean Sea and how they affect the ocean acidification signal in the Mediterranean Sea and the North Atlantic
This presentation by Katie Eaton covers the basics of understanding pH and then applies that knowledge to the ocean. She answers questions such as what is pH, how does acidification effect the ocean, and how can we mitigate ocean acidification? This presentation is aimed towards high school students, or introductory chemistry learning levels.
Baoshan Chen from the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University spoke to SoMAS on Friday March 11, 2022 at the Oceans, Sustainability, and Atmospheres Colloquium on the topic “How Inorganic Carbon Cycling Buffers Chesapeake Bay Acidification in Summer.”
Dr. Chen is a chemical oceanographer interested in solving fundamental questions related to biogeochemical cycles. His work focuses on the processes of inorganic carbon cycling in the water column, air-water gas exchange, ocean acidification, and hypoxia/anoxia. Dr. Chen has studied inorganic carbon cycling for over ten years in estuaries, coastal oceans, and the Arctic Ocean.
Acidification in estuaries and coastal oceans is detrimental to the health of ecosystems, particularly the calcifying organisms. The acidification is often enhanced by high rates of biological respiration in subsurface water which produces CO2 and acid. However, less is known about the potential processes that could counter acidification in eutrophic and seasonally hypoxia waters. I would like to give an example of the bay-wide pH buffering mechanism in the Chesapeake Bay in summer which results from spatially decoupled calcium carbonate mineral cycling. In short, calcium carbonate particles produced in the nearshore submerged aquatic vegetation are transported to the corrosive subsurface waters in the mid-bay. The subsequent dissolution of calcium carbonate buffers pH decreases caused by aerobic respiration.
Rapid evolution fuels transcriptional plasticity in fish species to cope with ocean acidification
A research team led by Dr Celia SCHUNTER at School of Biological Sciences (area of Ecology and Biodiversity) & The Swire Institute of Marine Science, The University of Hong Kong (HKU), in collaboration with researchers from The University of Adelaide, James Cook University in Australia, IRD Institute in New Caledonia, and Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University in Japan, revealed the basis to variability across different fish species and uncovered that some species evolve more rapidly, providing them with evolved molecular toolkits and allowing them able to cope with future ocean acidification. The journal paper was recently published in Global Change Biology.
Global climate change is affecting marine species and the ecological communities they compose. In this presentation, Dr. Paul Bourdeau will talk about how the north coast of California, with Cape Mendocino at its dynamic center, provides a natural laboratory for studying the tolerance of marine organisms to ocean acidification, which makes it difficult for organisms to build and maintain their shells.
Richard Feely discusses new findings about how increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is making the oceans more acidic, and how that will affect ocean ecosystems and the marine animals that inhabit them.
