Keeping tabs on ocean acidification: Using novel technologies to monitor carbonate chemistry from polar to tropical waters

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution the ocean has become more acidic due to uptake of anthropogenic CO2, a process that is projected to continue under current scenarios.

Understanding spatial and temporal variability in carbonate chemistry is essential in order to identify ocean acidification hotspots and begin to predict its effects on marine ecosystems.

Traditional ship-based observations cannot offer the spatial or the temporal coverage required to understand global and local variability in the marine CO2 system.

Autonomous technology, however, has the potential for large scale high resolution real-time observing (see for example the Argo project www.argo.net) and could accelerate our understanding of how the ocean CO2 cycle is changing. The Ocean Technology and Engineering group at NOC is a world leader in developing ocean sensor technology.

Novel sensors for in situ measurements of pH, Total Alkalinity (TA) and Dissolved Inorganic Carbon (DIC) have reached technology readiness for integration and deployment on autonomous platforms enabling, for the first time, direct in situ characterization of the marine CO2 system.

The purpose of this project is to optimize and validate these new technologies through new science applications, using the unprecedented resolution of synoptic observations to understand drivers of the marine CO2 system.