Ocean acidification

The OA-ICC news stream wishes its readers a very Happy New Year! Here are some blog stats for 2019:

• 1,171 posts published
• A total of 78,930 views
• 35,292 visitors representing 180 countries

Thank you for your continued interest and all our best wishes for a 2020 full of exciting new papers and information on ocean acidification!

Continue reading ‘Ocean acidification news stream: 2019 in review’

Continue reading ‘OA Alliance full video- IPCC Special Report on Ocean and Cryosphere at UN Climate Week 2019 (video)’

The Arctic is experiencing some of the fastest rates of ocean acidification with potentially severe implications for the ecosystem and communities dependent on these. To raise awareness on acidifying waters and to bring state-of-the-art knowledge on the issue to a global arena, the Arctic Council organized a side event “All aboard! Tackling polar ocean acidification” at the COP25 in Madrid.

The side event was led by the Icelandic Chairmanship, organized in cooperation with the Council’s Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) Working Group, and hosted in the Cryosphere Pavilion. It brought together leading international acidification experts for a one and a half hour briefing on the chemical, biological, and socio-economic impacts of acidifying waters in the North – and what can be done to tackle the issue.

Iceland’s Minister for the Environment and Natural Resources, HE. Guðmundur Ingi Guðbrandsson, opened the side event and highlighted his country’s close ties to its surrounding waters. “Iceland takes any changes in the marine environment very seriously. Fisheries are a main pillar of Iceland’s economy. So, any threats to the Arctic marine ecosystem is of concern to Icelandic society”, he stated in his opening.

Continue reading ‘Arctic Council COP25 side event on ocean acidification was a call for action’

Melissa McCutcheon reflects on her internship with Ocean Conservancy’s Ocean Acidification program

Melissa McCutcheon is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Coastal and Marine System Science program at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. She has always felt a special connection with the ocean and has spent more than eight years studying marine science on the Virginia and Texas coasts.

Continue reading ‘Small AND mighty: getting the right messages to the right ears’

When Samantha Siedlecki was a young girl in land-locked Chicago, she would go on family vacations to the beach, excursions that gave her a chance to play in the waves, build sandcastles, watch crabs, and fall in love with the ocean.

In high school, Siedlecki worked as a volunteer at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. As her fascination with the ocean grew, she began looking into college programs in marine sciences.

“I was always fascinated by what was going on in the ocean,” says Siedlecki, who received her bachelor’s degree in marine sciences with a concentration in marine geology from Eckerd College and her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

“In grad school I mostly focused on theoretical questions, but real-world applications of my questions required less-idealized approaches,” Siedlecki says. “I wanted to learn about more realistic simulations in my post-doc work.”

Now an assistant professor of marine sciences at the University of Connecticut, Siedlecki spearheads research on coastal environments. She recently received a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to develop a regional model of ocean acidification for the East Coast.

Continue reading ‘Meet the researcher: Samantha Siedlecki, Marine Sciences’

Are all areas of the globe affected equally by ocean acidification? What are its socio-economic consequences? While our general understanding of the impacts of ocean acidification is increasing, information in some areas of the world remains scarce. To help address this gap, the IAEA Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre (OA-ICC) supported the Indian Ocean Regional Ocean Acidification workshop held in Zanzibar, Tanzania 28-29 October 2019. The gathering was a step towards increasing awareness about the issue locally and assessing what resources are available to address it.

Ocean acidification is the ongoing increase of ocean acidity as a result of an uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This process impacts marine organisms and ecosystems, and the OA-ICC is coordinating research on these changes.

Continue reading ‘Supporting ocean acidification initiatives in the Western Indian Ocean’

What do policy makers really want to know about ocean acidification and its potential impacts? How can scientists, non-government entities, other stakeholders and community members help to answer their questions?

On October 7-11, the OA Alliance was invited to attend a Technical Cooperation project meeting between members of Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre (OA-ICC) held in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The meeting brought together member governments from Latin America, Africa, Europe and Asia working to advance regional science as part of the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network.

The OA Alliance presented a half-day workshop focused on best practices in communicating OA science to decision and policy makers and other stakeholders, drawing upon lessons learned and experiences from our national and subnational government members.

Continue reading ‘OA Alliance provides training with international partners: how to communicate OA to policy makers’

The increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is doing more than just warming the planet and threatening the lives of many terrestrial species. A large percentage of that carbon is actually reabsorbed by the oceans, causing a phenomenon known as ocean acidification — that is, our carbon emissions are literally changing the chemistry of ocean water and threatening ocean ecosystems worldwide. On Not Cool episode 21, Ariel is joined by Libby Jewett, founding Director of the Ocean Acidification Program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), who explains the chemistry behind ocean acidification, its impact on animals and plant life, and the strategies for helping organisms adapt to its effects. She also discusses the vulnerability of human communities that depend on marine resources, the implications for people who don’t live near the ocean, and the relationship between ocean acidification and climate change.

Continue reading ‘Not Cool Ep 21: Libby Jewett on ocean acidification (audio)’