Primary Areas of Study Ocean Acidification Research at NOAA
With a $1 billion U.S. shellfish industry and hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk, understanding acidification in the oceans and Great Lakes is important to protecting our economies and well being.
Ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes acidification represents the changes in water chemistry resulting in ecological impacts with cascading social and economic effects. This Plan focuses on acidification research to understand the ecosystem-related impacts to commercial activities, subsistence and recreational fishing, tourism, and social and cultural identities.
National acidification research objectives apply collectively to the open ocean, the continental shelves, and coastal zones of the U.S, its territories, and the Great Lakes region. The absorption and dissolution of carbon dioxide in the upper ocean and Great Lakes drives acidification, causing wide-scale changes in the chemistry and biology of these systems. Additionally, a number of important regional processes influence regionally unique ecosystems and impact human communities. The widespread nature and anticipated worsening of acidification means that we need to engage impacted communities and partners, assess needs, and generate products and tools that support management, adaptation and resilience to acidification. Developing partnerships with other federal agencies, academia, the private sector, state, local and tribal governments and the international community is critical.
The National research goals are to:
The following charts represent the mid-point progress in implementing national research actions according to the NOAA Ocean, Coastal, and Great Lakes Acidification Research Plan.
NOAA invests in research and activities toward meeting goals that improve our ability to understand and predict environmental change, species and ecosystem to response to changing ocean chemistry, and the human impacts of these changes. The report card below summarizes progress over the past five years toward meeting these national goals, measured by the number of major actions toward meeting this goal: good progress (4+ actions), some progress (1-3 actions) and no known progress.
There are nine environmental change actions: eight have made good progress and one has made some progress.
Research across the nation aims to sustain, improve and adopt robust physical, chemical and biological analytical systems, sensors and autonomous technologies to observe the full water column and benthic environments. Moving forward, research should further the use of satellite, remote sensing and autonomous technologies and approaches.
There are seven biological sensitivity actions: all have made good overall progress.
National efforts aim to better understand the impacts of ocean acidification on marine life, to better inform management and support healthy ecosystems and economies. Continued research of the multistressor effects on economically and ecologically important species support these efforts.
There are seven human dimension actions: all have made good overall progress.
Our capacity to monitor the environment and understand the biological response to ocean acidification provides an ability to assess risks and vulnerability to continued changing ocean chemistry. Regional efforts to identify socioeconomic impacts and develop adaptive strategies help our nation prepare and respond to ocean acidification.
Learn more about the regions we study and their mid-point progress in the NOAA Ocean, Coastal, and Great Lakes Acidification Research Plan by selecting below.
Evaluating the vulnerability of regions in deep waters beyond the continental shelf
The Alaska Region includes the waters of the Gulf of Alaska, Eastern Bering Sea and surrounding the Aleutian Islands.
The Arctic Region includes the broad continental shelf areas surrounding northern Alaska, including the Northern Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort seas
The West Coast Region includes the U.S. coastal waters off of Washington, Oregon, and California including the continental shelf and inland seas
The Pacific Islands Region includes the Exclusive Economic Zones surrounding the State of Hawai'i, the Territories of American Samoa and Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands and the U.S. Pacific Remote Island Areas
The Southeast Atlantic and Gulf Region encompasses continental shelf waters extending from the North Carolina to Florida coasts on the Atlantic seaboard and the marginal sea bounded by the U.S. Gulf Coast including the coastal areas of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas
The Florida Keys and Caribbean Region include the Florida Keys and coastal waters of south Florida, as well as Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the surrounding areas between the Gulf of America and Atlantic Ocean
The Mid-Atlantic Bight Region includes the eastern United States continental shelf area extending from Cape Hatteras, NC to Cape Cod, MA
The New England Region geographically includes the Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank and Scotian Shelf
The Great Lakes Region includes Lake Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario
In support of NOAA's mission and guiding mandates, the Ocean Acidification Program supports critical research enhancing our understanding of environmental change, biological and ecosystem response, and the socioeconomic impacts that can lead to potential adaptive strategies.
See our Guiding Documents >
NOAA’s Ocean Acidification Program supports coastal and ocean acidification research cruises along the major U.S. coastlines. These essential cruises supply the highest quality information on ocean conditions coastwide. More recent cruises collect and connect biology and ecology to the biogeochemistry of these marine ecosystems. The information from these research cruises, which generally occur on a four-year cycle for each coastline, help us track long-term ocean change and evaluate our monitoring network of buoys, gliders and other tools. Recent cruises occurred on the East Coast in 2022, the Gulf of America (formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico) in 2021 and the West Coast in 2021.
NOAA’s Global Ocean Monitoring and Observing Program currently invests $2.1 million per year for three years (FY24-FY26) to expand the global ocean carbon observing network and deploy new carbon dioxide (CO2) sensors in critical regions, helping to fill important data gaps in undersampled regions. Monitoring and observing surface ocean carbon will help experts track impacts on international ocean health — such as ocean acidification — and can inform ecosystem and fisheries management.
Funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will support automated measurements of atmospheric and surface ocean CO2 concentrations as part of the Surface Ocean CO2 Reference Observing Network (SOCONET), whose overarching goal is to improve the ability to track carbon emissions and uptakes. As part of this investment, a new generation of carbon sensors with improved accuracy will be installed on a variety of novel platforms, such as cargo vessels, passenger cruise lines and research vessels, including NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown and Saildrone autonomous surface vehicles.
The measurements from ships and uncrewed surface vehicles will be recorded annually in the Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT), a global database with over 100 international contributors.
The measurements will be synthesized and used to estimate the amount of atmospheric CO2 that is absorbed by the ocean. The SOCAT data submissions tools will be modernized to expedite the release of the SOCAT data sets.
NOAA’s Ocean Acidification Program and National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science invested in five projects to promote understanding of harmful algal blooms (HABs) and ocean acidification (OA) interactions. Recent studies indicate that increased carbon dioxide concentrations support higher phytoplankton densities and that OA parameters such as pCO2 and pH have variable effects on growth rate and cellular toxin production in different HAB species and strains. OA and HABs can impact the same coastal resources including aquaculture, wild fisheries and tourism in different ways with cascading impacts to coastal ecosystems, communities and economies to inform management decisions. These investments help to understand what synergistic or antagonistic effects may exist between the two stressors so that managers, industries and communities can prepare.
To foster understanding and enable the pursuit of sustainability, MIT Sea Grant provides hands-on experiences to constituents that manage and depend on coastal resources challenged by warming and increased acidification. They work with key partners in Massachusetts and the New England region, including water quality monitoring organizations, aquaculture operations, federal and state agencies and the Northeast Coastal Acidification Network. In 2018, MIT Sea Grant supported three in-person workshops in Connecticut, Maine and Massachusetts focused on best practices for measuring coastal acidification. More than 60 organizations were trained in methods for water collection and data gathering. In 2019, these workshops led to Shell Day, an ocean acidification monitoring effort during which participants collected 435 seawater samples in a single day from 87 sites along the coast from Long Island Sound to Downeast Maine. Since 2021, MIT Sea Grant has also provided a laboratory to analyze pH and alkalinity for a participatory science project across Massachusetts monitoring acidity of brooks, ponds and rivers in coastal watersheds. For the past two years, this project focused on leveraging resources of water quality monitoring groups to incorporate coastal acidification parameters and collecting water samples to be analyzed for total alkalinity in the laboratory. With this, they aim to increase coastal monitoring assets and build capacity to characterize acidification drivers and adaptation strategies
Bioeconomic models are a multidisciplinary tool that use oceanography, fisheries science and social science to assess socioeconomic impacts. Funded by the Ocean Acidification Program, researchers at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center use a bioeconomic model to study the impacts of ocean acidification on Eastern Bering Sea crab, northern rock sole and Alaska cod. The goal is to predict how ocean acidification will affect abundance yields and income generated by the fisheries. This work informs the potential economic impacts of ocean acidification and future decision making and research planning.
Long-term declines of red king crab in Bristol Bay, Alaska may be partially attributed to ocean acidification conditions. These impacts may be partially responsible for the fishery closures during the 2021–2022 and 2022–2023 seasons. Researchers found that ocean acidification negatively impacts Alaskan crabs generally by changing physiological processes, decreasing growth, increasing death rates and reducing shell thickness. Funded by the Ocean Acidification Program, scientists at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center continue to investigate the responses of early life history stages and study the potential of various Alaska crabs to acclimate to changing conditions. Results will inform models that will use the parameters studied to predict the effects of future ocean acidification on the populations of red king crab in Bristol Bay as well as on the fisheries that depend on them. Fishery managers will better be able to anticipate and manage stocks if changing ocean chemistry affects stock productivity and thus the maximum sustainable yield.
Understanding seasonal changes in ocean acidification in Alaskan waters and the potential impacts to the multi-billion-dollar fishery sector is a main priority. Through work funded by NOAA’s Ocean Acidification Program, the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory developed a model capable of depicting past ocean chemistry conditions for the Bering Sea and is now testing the ability of this model to forecast future conditions. This model is being used to develop an ocean acidification indicator provided to fisheries managers in the annual NOAA Eastern Bering Sea Ecosystem Status Report.
The NOAA Ocean Acidification Program (OAP) works to prepare society to adapt to the consequences of ocean acidification and conserve marine ecosystems as acidification occurs. Learn more about the human connections and adaptation strategies from these efforts.
Adaptation approaches fostered by the OAP include:
Using models and research to understand the sensitivity of organisms and ecosystems to ocean acidification to make predictions about the future, allowing communities and industries to prepare
Using these models and predictions as tools to facilitate management strategies that will protect marine resources and communities from future changes
Developing innovative tools to help monitor ocean acidification and mitigate changing ocean chemistry locally
Drive fuel-efficient vehicles or choose public transportation. Choose your bike or walk! Don't sit idle for more than 30 seconds. Keep your tires properly inflated.
Eat local- this helps cut down on production and transport! Reduce your meat and dairy. Compost to avoid food waste ending up in the landfill
Make energy-efficient choices for your appliances and lighting. Heat and cool efficiently! Change your air filters and program your thermostat, seal and insulate your home, and support clean energy sources
Reduce your use of fertilizers, Improve sewage treatment and run off, and Protect and restore coastal habitats
You've taken the first step to learn more about ocean acidification - why not spread this knowledge to your community?
Every community has their unique culture, economy and ecology and what’s at stake from ocean acidification may be different depending on where you live. As a community member, you can take a larger role in educating the public about ocean acidification. Creating awareness is the first step to taking action. As communities gain traction, neighboring regions that share marine resources can build larger coalitions to address ocean acidification. Here are some ideas to get started: