Ship of Opportunity work in support of OA monitoring (SOOP-OA)
NOAA operates the largest ship of opportunity (SOOP) effort for surface CO2 observations in the world. The objective of the ocean acidification (OA) monitoring effort in the coastal ocean on NOAA fisheries ships Gordon Gunter and Henry B. Bigelow is to obtain data for a data-based ocean acidification product suite for the East Coast and Gulf Coast. The ship of opportunity (SOOP) in support of OA monitoring (SOOP-OA) is in direct response to the needs expressed in the NOAA OA strategic plan, national and international program documentation, to understand how the rates and magnitude of acidification will vary across time and space, as a consequence of local and regional geochemical, hydrological, and biological variability and trends. The core of understanding rests upon monitoring the carbon system and related physical and biogeochemical parameters that are used to characterize the state of the coastal ocean in the project area.
The NOAA fisheries ships Gunter and Bigelow provide regular cruise tracks used in stock assessments such that over time correlations and causality can be obtained between OA and fisheries interests. The repeatability also provides good snapshots of change. As there are robust correlations between surface CO2 levels and remotely sensed parameters, these data are critical for the mapping of OA parameters. The development of algorithms to perform this mapping is done from support measurements on the SOOP-OA, other SOOP data under our purview, and from the dedicated research cruises.
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