Data management activities for the ocean component of the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC-Oceans) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have recently stopped and this letter provides information on steps being taken to minimize the impact of this stoppage on the oceanographic community. Data, numerical data packages (NDPs), data synthesis product pages, and utilities (such as CO2SYS) at CDIAC-Oceans will continue to be accessible through ORNL until September 30, 2017 when the entire CDIAC will fully cease operations.

46 Scientists from the region gathered again in Phuket, Thailand, 29－31 August 2016, stepping up their efforts to develop a long term program monitoring the ecological impacts of ocean acidification on coral reef ecosystems for the region.

The three-day WESTPAC event is a follow-up to previous two workshops in 2015, with the aim to review and test, through expert discussions and practical demonstrations either in field or laboratory, a set of consistent, comparable and cost-effective “Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)”, which could be used for monitoring the ecological impacts of ocean acidification on coral reef ecosystems. While these efforts are focused on the establishment of a regional ocean acidification observing network, we are ideally striving for consistency and comparability as part of the Global Ocean Acidification - Observing Network (GOA-ON).

For Bill Mook, coastal acidification is one thing his oyster hatchery cannot afford to ignore.

Mook Sea Farm depends on seawater from the Gulf of Maine pumped into a Quonset hut-style building where tiny oysters are grown in tanks. Mook sells these tiny oysters to other oyster farmers or transfers them to his oyster farm on the Damariscotta River where they grow large enough to sell to restaurants and markets on the East Coast.

Neurologist Andy Stern says some marine biologists are predicting a possibly grim future for the ocean, but he and his team of engineers developed an inexpensive and portable product to study the waters. It’s an intelligent surfboard, called Smartfin, which analyzes different details of the waves, to hopefully one day provide insight into what climate change is doing now and what it will do next.

The Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT, www.socat.info) is a synthesis activity by the international marine carbon research community (>100 contributors). SOCAT version 4 has 18.5 million quality-controlled, surface ocean fCO2 (fugacity of carbon dioxide) observations with an accuracy of better than 5 μatm from 1957 to 2015 for the global oceans and coastal seas. Automation of data upload and initial data checks speeds up data submission and allows annual releases of SOCAT from version 4 onwards. SOCAT enables quantification of the ocean carbon sink and ocean acidification and evaluation of ocean biogeochemical models. SOCAT represents a milestone in research coordination, data access, biogeochemical and climate research and in informing policy.