OAP Ocean Outlook

The end of the fiscal year has been a pivotal time of reflection, strategic planning, and major accomplishments nationwide. This year, OAP celebrates 15 years of progress toward preparing our nation for the impacts of ocean and coastal acidification. The timely triennial OAP Research Community Meeting and annual mCDR PI Community Meeting convened our principal investigators and partners. These gatherings provided the opportunity to review major milestones and identify critical priorities moving forward. The release of the OAP FY25 Accomplishments highlights recent progress. 

The following summer months were marked by a return to extensive field operations and research. After years of hiatus, two highly anticipated concurrent coastwide ocean acidification research cruises concluded their missions. Moving into the next fiscal year, we wish our entire community a safe and productive fall with successful deployments for those at sea and continued progress for those working across our nation.  

The Ocean Acidification Program's annual accomplishments report for Fiscal Year 2025 is now live! This interactive report highlights major milestones, key publications, and vital progress made across the nation to track changing ocean chemistry, understand biological impacts, and build community resilience. Explore key achievements and dive into local efforts using the new interactive "OAP In Your State" map in the FY25 Accomplishments Report.

The 2026 West Coast Ocean Acidification (2026) research mission concluded in late August, wrapping OAP’s two coastwide research missions. The 4th East Coast Ocean Acidification (ECOA-4) mission concluded earlier this summer, with a key achievement of surveying the most northern line ever. This marks the first-ever concurrent dual coast survey for ocean acidification. These coastal acidification research cruises collect the highest quality data on ocean chemistry, coupled with biological data, serving a benchmark for research and monitoring in these regions. The research cruises also occurred as a historic El Niño continues to build. Also newly released are online blogs and photo galleries. OAP recognizes the great contributions and willing coordination by NOAA labs and fishery science centers as well as cooperative institutes and academic partners to the success of these missions. OAP now begins planning for the 2027 mission in the Gulf. 

In addition, the National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) successfully completed all scientific operations of the 2026 mission in American Samoa and Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument (PIHMNM) aboard NOAA Ship Oscar Elton Sette.

Read blogs, find images, read stories and more.

Images: CTD deployment on ECOA-4 cruise (Credit: Chris Hunt), Bongo nets on the WCOA 2026 cruise, scientists taking 3d reef images during the NCRMP 2026 mission.

During NOAA Back to School month, OAP launched “Choose Your Own (O)Adventure,” a new interactive educational tool. It helps educators, students, and the public easily discover ocean and coastal acidification resources. Users can quickly tailor content to their specific interests, regions, species, or grade levels.

What you can do with CYOA

Explore the CYOA tool

In May 2026, OAP convened two major community gatherings at the NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction in College Park, MD. The triennial 2026 OAP Research Community Meeting coincided with the 15th anniversary of the program, bringing together more than 100 OAP funded researchers, coastal acidification network coordinators, and NOAA partners. The meeting focused on transitioning research into actionable decision-support tools, capturing high-frequency observing dynamics, and evaluating multi-stressor biological impacts across species and ecosystems and more. 

The 2026 mCDR PI Meeting immediately followed and convened research teams funded under the FY23 multi-agency opportunity to review findings across foundational research, large-scale modeling, and coastal field trials. Discussions highlighted progress in testing marine carbon dioxide removal pathways and emphasized the critical need for continued model-observation integration, biological response studies, and robust monitoring frameworks.

Recently released are new guidance memos with recommendations for engaging with the fisheries sector on marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) efforts. These documents establish best practices for outreach, communication, and collaboration to ensure transparent research and implementation. The memos were prepared by the Northeast Coastal Acidification Network (NECAN), California Current Acidification Network (CCAN), Alaska Ocean Acidification Network (AOAN) and the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA).