a news stream provided by the Ocean Acidification International Coordination Center (OA-ICC)
The concept submission site for The Paul G. Allen Ocean Challenge: Mitigating Acidification Impacts is now open. The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, as part of a larger ocean health initiative, and in collaboration with The Oceanography Society, is offering a $10,000 prize for the most promising science-based concept for mitigating environmental and/or societal impacts of ocean acidification.
Continue reading ‘Submission site open – Paul G. Allen Ocean Challenge’
Project status: This project began in January, 2012 and is projected to be completed in December, 2015
We are supporting the development of a management model to predict impacts of ocean acidification on food webs and the fishing economy in the California Current. The model will project how effects of ocean acidification, low oxygen, temperature changes, and fishing pressure might interact to influence fish populations and fishing economies.
Overview
Since the Industrial Revolution (1750-1850), the oceans have absorbed a substantial proportion of the carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere from human activities, including the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, and land-use changes. As a result, the acid-base balance of the ocean has changed, resulting in an increased level of acidity (i.e., the concentration of the hydrogen ion, or [H+]) in surface seawater. Because many biological and chemical processes are dependent on the acid-base balance in seawater, ocean acidification could have drastic consequences to the success, function, and role of marine organisms and ecosystems.
Continue reading ‘Bermuda Ocean Acidification and Coral Reef Investigation (BEACON)’
Project Status: This project began in January, 2012 and is projected to be completed in December, 2015
We are supporting an effort to predict ocean acidification impacts on northeast US shellfish. Results will project effects on survival, growth and reproduction for two species using a range of ocean acidification scenarios.
Continue reading ‘Predicting impacts of ocean acidification on Northeast US shellfish’
Submission deadline: 31 July 2013
The problem Over the last 150 years, atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased from 290 ppm to 395 ppm, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels. Ocean acidification is occurring because the world’s oceans, as a primary sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide, are absorbing increasing amounts of CO2, resulting in a lower pH. Ocean acidification, together with changes in ocean temperature, salinity, and stratification, is altering the fundamental chemical balance of ocean and coastal waters, impacting the global ocean ecosystem, and potentially threatening marine food supplies.
The challenge The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, as part of a larger ocean health initiative, and in collaboration with The Oceanography Society, is offering a $10,000 prize for the most promising new science-based concept for mitigating environmental and/or societal impacts of ocean acidification.
Continue reading ‘The Paul G. Allen Ocean Challenge: mitigating acidification impacts’
You can now follow BIOACID, and the ongoing mesocosm experiments in Kristineberg in Sweden, on Facebook and Twitter.
Project Status: This project began in January, 2012 and is projected to be completed in December, 2015
We are supporting the development of an integrated model to forecast impacts of ocean acidification on the Atlantic sea scallop fishery. The model will (1) predict ocean acidification trends, (2) determine effects on sea scallop populations and landings and (3) project impacts to the fishery and regional economy.
Continue reading ‘Ocean acidification and sea scallops: predicting impacts of climate change’
Project Status: This project began in January, 2010 and was completed in December, 2012
Ocean acidification is a problem created by the increasing levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, and it is harmful to certain plankton, shellfish, coral, and marine plants. We have begun a pilot study in Kachemak Bay, Alaska, to measure the variations in acidity that result from freshwater input from glaciers, snowmelt, and rainfall and from upwelling ocean water. The bay’s unique geographic features provide a cost-effective way to study varying acidity levels.
Continue reading ‘Ocean acidification: understanding changing chemistry in Alaska coastal waters’
Projects address concerns for acidifying marine ecosystems
With increasing levels of carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere and moving into marine systems, the world’s oceans are becoming more acidic.
The oceans may be acidifying faster today than at anytime in the past 300 million years, scientists have found.
To address the concern for acidifying marine ecosystems, the National Science Foundation (NSF) recently awarded new grants totaling $12 million in its Ocean Acidification program.
The program is part of NSF’s Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability (SEES) investment.
The awards, the second round in this program, are supported by NSF’s Directorates for Geosciences and Biological Sciences, and Office of Polar Programs.
As scientists continue to research ways in which the oceans are changing – and what these changes mean for fish populations, three new research projects will receive funding to examine the effects of ocean acidification on fisheries, and the coastal economies that depend upon them.
Ocean acidification occurs when the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, making it more acidic. Species as diverse as scallops and coral are vulnerable to ocean acidification, which can affect the growth of their shells and skeletons.
Andone Lavery, Applied Ocean Physics & Engineering
Timothy Stanton, Applied Ocean Physics & Engineering
Peter Wiebe, Biology
OLI Funded Grant 2012
Thecosome pteropods are a widely distributed group of shelled zooplankton that are important members of pelagic ecosystems as they constitute key prey for a variety of commerciallyexploited fish species as well as other zooplankton and top predators, such as whales and birds. Though they are generally small contributors to global zooplankton abundance and biomass, they have been observed at very high densities at some times and locations. As a result of their highly variable distributions, or patchiness, and often inadequate sampling techniques, relatively little is known about their distribution. Ocean acidification will result in a seawater environment that is progressively more corrosive to their aragonite shells, with the effects being more pronounced at depth. It is speculated that ocean acidification will have significant impacts on both their behavior and shell condition. In order to understand the impact of ocean acidification on these shelled zooplankton, it is necessary to develop tools that can sample them on relevant spatial and temporal scales. Broadband acoustic scattering techniques are one such remote sensing tool. Thecosome pteropods are particularly well suited to characterization using acoustic scattering techniques as they secrete aragonite shells that make them highly efficient scatterers of sound relative to their size. However, these shells are thin, rough, and of complex shapes, and include an opercular opening, which represents a large discontinuity from the perspective of acoustic scattering. Understanding the complex scattering physics is key to using acoustics as a quantitative remote sensing tool for sampling these organisms.
Ocean acidification is one of the most pressing marine science issues of our time, with potential biological impacts spanning all marine phyla and potential societal impacts affecting man’s relationship to the sea. Rising levels of atmospheric pCO2 are increasing the acidity of the world oceans. It is generally held that average surface ocean pH has already declined by 0.1 pH units relative to the pre-industrial level (Orr et al., 2005), and is projected to decrease 0.3 to 0.46 units by the end of this century, depending on CO2 emission scenarios (Caldeira and Wickett, 2005). The overall goal of this research is to parameterize how changes in pCO2 levels could alter the biological and alkalinity pumps of the world ocean. Specifically, the direct and indirect effects of ocean acidification will be examined within a simple, controlled predator/prey system containing a single prey phytoplankton species (the coccolithophore, Emiliania huxleyi) and a single predator (the oceanic metazoan grazer, Calanus finmarchicus).
BIOACID (Biological Impacts of Ocean Acidification), the German national project on ocean acidification, has been extended for a second 3-year phase starting on September 1st 2012. Building on the knowledge gained during phase 1, BIOACID II will aim at community level responses to ocean acidification, their ecosystem and biogeochemical consequences and socio-economic impacts.
Continue reading ‘BIOACID extended for a second 3-year funding period’
The state of Alaska and the University of Alaska Fairbanks will be throwing a wider net to collect data on ocean acidification in the coming years. The state allocated $2.7 million in the UAF capital budget during the 2012 legislative session for expanded ocean acidification monitoring.
“This is a tremendous opportunity to improve our understanding of a problem that could have far-reaching implications for our state,” said assistant professor Jeremy Mathis, the director of the Ocean Acidification Research Center at UAF. “This infusion of funding will allow us to do things that we didn’t think were possible a couple of years ago.”
Mathis will use the new funding to build a network of ocean acidification buoys around the state that will provide real-time monitoring of changing conditions throughout some of the state’s most sensitive coastal areas.
Continue reading ‘UAF ocean acidification research expanding’
The Federal Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring (FOARAM) Act of 2009 mandates that NOAA establishes a monitoring and research program to document ocean acidification (OA) impacts. In general terms, ocean acidification refers to the net changes in seawater chemistry, including decreases in seawater pH, due to the ocean’s absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide (see what is ocean acidification?). A consensus research strategy has been developed for NOAA to advance the understanding of the impacts of ocean acidification and to address related challenges to local and national ecosystems and communities (NOAA Ocean Acidification Steering Committee, 2010). The NOAA Ocean Acidification Program was formally established in May 2011 to integrate and fund efforts across and external to NOAA that address Ocean Acidification (NOAA Ocean Acidification Program Director, Libby Jewett, Ph.D.).
Continue reading ‘NODC ocean acidification scientific data stewardship’
To document the status and progress of ocean acidification in open-ocean and coastal environments and to understand its drivers and impacts on marine ecosystems, it will be necessary to develop a coordinated multidisciplinary multinational approach for observations. In partnership with the NOAA Ocean Acidification Program, the International Ocean Carbon Coordination Project, and the Global Ocean Observing System, the University of Washington is hosting a workshop on June 26–28th to take steps to develop a global ocean acidification monitoring network.
Continue reading ‘Questionnaire, ocean acidification observing network’
Up-to-date marine data enables students to carry out scientifically valid virtual experiments. The method yields insights on how scientific knowledge is created and developed, according to research from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Researchers from the University of Gothenburg followed upper-secondary students from the Swedish town of Lysekil for one year. The study was part of the research project I2I, Inquiry to Insight.
Using scientific data provided by the marine researchers involved in the project, the students explored the marine environment of the Gullmar Fjord on the Swedish west coast. The students used a virtual ocean acidification lab to conduct studies on acidification of the marine environment, studies with impressive validity based on the latest authentic data.
The Mediterranean Sea Acidification in a changing climate (MedSeA), a project funded by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme, assesses uncertainties, risks and thresholds related to Mediterranean acidification and warming at organism, ecosystem and economic scales. Eighteen institutions in 11 countries, mainly from the Mediterranean, are collaborating to identify where the impacts of acidification on Mediterranean waters will be most severe, taking into account the complete chain of causes and effects, from ocean chemistry through marine biology to socio-economic costs (Fig. 18). Policy measures for adaptation and mitigation that may vary geographically, and at the same time require coordination between regions or countries, will be proposed.
Continue reading ‘Research turns to acidification and warming in the Mediterranean Sea’
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) partnership with the U.S. Coast Guard Ice Breaker Healy and its United Nations Convention Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) cruises has produced new synoptic data from samples collected in the Arctic Ocean and insights into the patterns and extent of ocean acidification. This framework of foundational geochemical information will help inform our understanding of potential risks to Arctic resources due to ocean acidification.
Continue reading ‘Studying ocean acidification in the Arctic Ocean’
Project leader: Naqvi, S.W.A.
Objectives:
