NOAA's Ocean Acidification Program supports research that focuses on economically and ecologically important marine species. Research of survival, growth, and physiology of marine organisms can be used to explore how aquaculture, wild fisheries, and food webs may change as ocean chemistry changes.
A number of NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service Science Centers have state-of-the-art experimental facilities to study the response of marine organisms to the chemistry conditions expected with ocean acidification.
The Northeast Fisheries Science Center has facilities at its Sandy Hook, NJ and Milford, CT laboratories; the Alaska Fisheries Science Centers at its Newport, OR and Kodiak, AK laboratories; and the Northwest Fisheries Science Center at its Mukilteo and Manchester, WA laboratories. All facilities can tightly control carbon dioxide and temperature. The Northwest Fisheries Science Center can also control oxygen, and can create variable treatment conditions for carbon dioxide, temperature, and oxygen. These facilities include equipment for seawater carbon chemistry analysis, and all use standard operating procedures for analyzing carbonate chemistry to identify the treatment conditions used in experiments.
Both deep sea and shallow reef-building corals have calcium carbonate skeletons. As our oceans become more acidic, carbonate ions, which are an important part of calcium carbonate structures, such as these coral skeletons, become relatively less abundant. Decreases in seawater carbonate ion concentration can make building and maintaining calcium carbonate structures difficult for calcifying marine organisms such as coral.
Increased levels of carbon dioxide in our ocean can have a wide variety of impacts on fish, including altering behavior, otolith (a fish's ear bone) formation, and young fish's growth. Find out more about what scientists are learning about ocean acidification impacts on fish like rockfish, scup, summer flounder, and walleye pollock.
Shellfish, such as oyster, clams, crabs and scallop, provide food for marine life and for people, too. Shellfish make their shells or carapaces from calcium carbonate, which contains carbonate ion as a building block. The decreases in seawater carbonate ion concentration expected with ocean acidification can make building and maintaining calcium carbonate structures difficult for calcifying marine organisms like shellfish. This may impact their survival, growth, and physiology, and, thus, the food webs and economies that depend on them.
Plankton are tiny plants and animals that many marine organisms, ranging from salmon to whales, rely on for nutrition. Some plankton have calcium carbonate structures, which are built from carbonate ions. Carbonate ions become relatively less abundant as the oceans become more acidic. Decreases in seawater carbonate ions can make building and maintaining shells and other calcium carbonate structures difficult for calcifying marine organisms such as plankton. Changes to the survival, growth, and physiology of plankton can have impacts throughout the food web.
The DFO-NOAA Ocean Acidification Steering Committee is pleased to announce the kickoff of the next round of funding to support projects/activities that help to advance our collaborative efforts. As with the previous round, there is $50K USD and $50K CAD set aside, and the focus will be on supporting students, post-docs, and early career scientists.
Funding Opportunity Details and Application Instructions
The deadline to submit proposals is February 15, 2023, sent to Alyssa Dunbar (Alyssa.dunbar@dfo-mpo.gc.ca) and Alex Puritz (Alexandra.puritz@noaa.gov). Contact them with questions.
Announcing a position at NERACOOS as the Climate and Ecosystems Coordinator. The two primary responsibilities will be coordinating the Northeast Coastal Acidification Network (NECAN) and the Ocean Acidification Information Exchange (OAIE), with time reserved to develop new work related to OA, HABs, and other emerging issues.
Position Details and Requirements HERE
Applying Instructions: Submit CV, 1-page cover letter, and contact information for three professional references as a PDF to Rob Cardeiro (rob@neracoos.org). The search committee will review applications beginning February 1, 2023, and will continue until the position is filled.
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The NOAA Ocean Acidification Program on behalf of the National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP) solicits proposals focused on (a) expanding understanding of various aspects of marine Carbon Dioxide Removal (mCDR); (b) understanding associated co-benefits (including ocean acidification mitigation) and risks of marine CDR; and (c) the science needed to build building regulatory frameworks for both testing and scaling of marine CDR approaches. This knowledge will assist in the verification or invalidation of hypotheses regarding mCDR, in order to make informed decisions regarding a potential scaled negative carbon ocean industry.
To be eligible under this NOPP funding opportunity, each proposing team must comprise participants from at least two of the following sectors: academia, private sector (including Non-Governmental Organizations, or NGOs), or government (including federal, tribal, state, and local). Participants in this multi-agency request for proposals include: NOAA (Ocean Acidification Program, Global Ocean Monitoring and Observing Program, US Integrated Ocean Observing System/US IOOS), the Department of Energy (Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, Water Power Technologies Office), Department of Navy (Office of Naval Research), the National Science Foundation (Chemical Oceanography Program) and philanthropies including ClimateWorks.
To facilitate cross-sectoral networking and the formation of new partnerships, our NOFO partners, ClimateWorks Foundation has created a networking resource for individuals who are leading proposals and seeking new partnerships as well as individuals interested in participating in a proposal and being discoverable. See here for more network details: http://tinyurl.com/NOPPmCDRnetwork. This form produces a Wednesday, November 23, 2022