NOAA Ocean Acidification Program (OAP) scientists collect a variety of data to understand changing ocean chemistry and its impacts on marine organisms and ecosystems. The National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) serves as the NOAA Ocean Acidification data management focal point through its Ocean Acidification Data Stewardship (OADS) project.
NOAA OAP funds the Ocean Carbon and Acidification System Project, building a collaborative approach with shared responsibilities among scientists, data managers, and data partners.
OCADS ensures data collected from OAP-funded research and other sources is archived and accessible for ocean carbon and ocean acidification analyses, forecasting capabilities, and better assessments of marine resource vulnerability. OCADS project is envisioned as the best data management services to support regional to global ocean carbon cycling and OA research. It builds upon a U.S. National OA data management and integration service required by the Federal Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring Act of 2009.
All about OCADS data
There are currently 19 OAP-supported buoys in coastal, open-ocean and coral reef waters which contribute to NOAA's Ocean Acidification Monitoring Program, with other deployments planned.
Currently, there are two types of floating devices which instruments can be added in order to measure various ocean characteristics - buoys and wave gliders. Buoys are moored, allowing them to remain stationary and for scientists to get measurements from the same place over time. The time series created from these measurements are key to understanding how ocean chemistry is changing over time. There are also buoys moored in the open-ocean and near coral reef ecosystems to monitor the changes in the carbonate chemistry in these ecosystems. The MAP CO2 sensors on these buoys measure pCO2 every three hours.
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Explore ocean acidification data from around the world...