The surface ocean has absorbed roughly a quarter of all carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions resulting from human activities (McKinley et al., 2016; Gruber et al., 2019; Friedlingstein et al., 2020). This natural process has helped to buffer the effect of climate change on the planet. However, this comes at a high cost to the ocean. As the atmospheric CO2 dissolves into the ocean, it reacts with seawater, driving changes in ocean carbonate chemistry and increasing its acidity. Cumulatively, these processes are called ocean acidification (OA).
Changes in the ocean's carbonate chemistry can have wide-reaching impacts on marine organisms and ecosystems. For example, OA can reduce many marine organisms' ability to calcify, including reef-building corals and shelled mollusks. And it has been shown to cause a range of physiological and behavioral responses at the organism level that can affect biodiversity and ecosystem structure. Direct consequences for marine life growth, reproduction, development, and survival can propagate through the food web. In turn, this can affect ocean-related services and uses, including food security from fisheries and aquaculture, livelihoods, transportation, coastal protection, tourism, and cultural heritage. Coastal regions are expected to be strongly affected by OA. But their highly dynamic nature and the additional influences on these environments, such as temperature changes, freshwater run-off, nutrient influx, and biological activity, make it challenging to uncover the specific controls and impacts of OA alone.
A Global Climate Indicator
The need for improved research, observation, and prediction of OA—and its global impacts—has been recognized at intergovernmental levels. This includes the UN General Assembly, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
(Image credit: Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network)
In 2015, the UN General Assembly established ocean acidity as one of 10 targets for the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14: Life below water. The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO is the custodian agency for the Indicator under Target 14.3, which calls to "minimize and address the impacts of ocean acidification, including through enhanced scientific cooperation at all levels". The Methodology for the SDG 14.3.1 Indicator provides guidance on measuring seawater carbonate chemistry and how to facilitate reporting on ocean acidity by the Member States. In 2018, the World Meteorological Organization established OA as a headline climate indicator for reporting to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and has included ocean acidification in its yearly Statement on the State of the Global Climate.
Enhancing OA Observation
We must monitor carbonate chemistry to improve our understanding of the variability and rates of change in OA at local to global scales and combine these observations with studies of biological impacts. These are central aims of the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network (GOA-ON). The network consists of researchers covering many ocean science fields, stakeholders, civil society, and policymakers, working together to develop capacity and awareness of OA worldwide. This integrated global observing network is increasing our understanding of the biological impacts of OA in the context of multiple stressors, including increased temperature, changes in nutrient concentrations, and lower dissolved-oxygen concentrations. GOA-ON members use these observations to ground-truth forecasts and optimize biogeochemical and biological models related to ocean acidification.
In 2021, GOA-ON's Ocean Decade Action entitled "Ocean Acidification Research for Sustainability - Providing society with the observational and scientific evidence needed to sustainably identify, monitor, mitigate and adapt to ocean acidification; from local to global scales (OARS)" was endorsed as a program of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. OARS builds on the successful work of GOA-ON by broadening the development of OA science by enhancing OA observation and research capacity. The end outcome will increase our understanding of ocean chemistry changes and their impacts worldwide, especially in locations where this data is lacking. Specifically, OARS will provide systematic evidence of the impacts on marine ecosystems on local and global scales. And support society and decision-makers with the information needed to mitigate and adapt to OA, facilitating the development and evaluation of strategies to offset future impacts.
Building on the success and lessons learned from the work of GOA-ON in supporting the OA community, OARS will expand this network to address broader community needs, such as interactions of OA with multiple ocean stressors, as well as greater engagement with and knowledge delivered to specific regions, industry, and policymakers.
The OARS programme provides a vision for ocean acidification research for the next decade, which sets out a roadmap that, when implemented in collaboration with multiple partners, will deliver against seven outcomes by 2030. These outcomes are:
- Enable the scientific community to provide ocean acidification data and evidence of known quality.
- Identify data and evidence needs for mitigation and adaptation strategies, from local to global, by 2022.
- Co-design and implementation of observation strategies in collaboration with data/information producers and end-users by 2025.
- Increase understanding of ocean acidification impacts to protect marine life by 2030.
- Provide appropriate data and information necessary to develop societally relevant predictions and projections.
- Increase public awareness of ocean acidification, its sources, and its impacts.
- Develop strategies and solutions to enable countries and regions to include measures to reduce ocean acidification in their respective legislation.
OARS was first introduced to the global community during a UN Ocean Decade Laboratory satellite event, which coincided with GOA-ON's "Ocean Acidification Week 2021" virtual conference. A short video outlined how the OARS programme will support the Decade's implementation at the satellite event, officially launching the initiative. In addition, a panel discussion took place with remarks from UN Special Envoy for the Ocean, Peter Thompson. The OARS programme was also promoted at COP26 by GOA-ON representatives, including GOA-ON co-chair Professor Steve Widdicombe and OARS Coordinator Dr. Kirsten Isensee.
Looking Forward
Looking forward, the OARS team hopes to contribute to the Our Ocean Conference in Palau (April 2022), to which GOA-ON co-chair Professor Jan Newton has been invited. A side event will also be held at the UN Ocean Conference in Portugal in June 2022. In September 2022, the OARS programme will be well represented at the 5th International Symposium on the Ocean in a High-CO2 World in Peru. The team plans to leverage the gathering of the ocean acidification community to increase actions towards the OARS programme. A side event will bring the leaders of the nine GOA-ON regional hubs to discuss OARS efforts and synergies.
To ensure the successful implementation of the OARS programme, co-champions have been identified by GOA-ON and its partners. These co-champions - who are experts within their fields - will assemble working groups tasked with finding the path towards achieving the seven outcomes by identifying the key actions, drivers, and enablers needed.
Over the next 12 months, the working groups will draft implementation plans outlining the delivery of their outcome. They will follow a "Theory of Change" structure and prepare a draft timeline and indicative budget to support the implementation plan. The co-champions and working groups will also seek funding to develop key actions and projects. Furthermore, they will identify and engage with key partners and funders and forge links with other UN Ocean Decade endorsed programs to support the delivery of the outcomes. This will broaden the scope of GOA-ON and involve all of the partner agencies involved. The main GOA-ON partners are NOAA and its Ocean Acidification Programme (NOAA OAP), the IAEA and its Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre (IAEA OA-ICC), and the IOC-UNESCO. Other partners in OARS include the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), the International Ocean Carbon Coordination Project (IOCCP), the International Alliance to Combat Ocean Acidification, The Ocean Foundation (TOF), and two other UN Ocean Decade Programmes, namely the Global Ocean Oxygen Network's (GO2NE) Global Ocean Oxygen Decade (GOOD) and the Marine Biodiversity Observation Network's (M-BON) Marine Life 2030. Together, the co-champions and working group members will put OARS on the path to achieving the overarching vision of this program by providing societies with the observational and scientific evidence needed to sustainably identify, monitor, mitigate, and adapt to ocean acidification from local to global scales. Countries can then better manage, mitigate, and reduce the impacts of ocean acidification on marine ecosystems, the goods and services they provide, and the human communities that rely on them.
By delivering the seven outcomes, OARS will create a number of ultimate benefits: providing a clean, diverse, productive ocean capable of supporting the health, well-being, and livelihoods of human societies dependent on marine resources. If you, too, would like to be involved in this effort and contribute to the UN Ocean Decade through actions, please contact either Dr. Kirsten Isensee (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) or the GOA-ON Secretariat (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).
McKinley, G., Pilcher, D., Fay, A. et al. (2016) Timescales for detection of trends in the ocean carbon sink. Nature 530, 469–472. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature16958
Gruber, N. et al., (2019) The oceanic sink for anthropogenic CO2 from 1994 to 2007. Science, 363(6432), 1193–1199. doi:10.1126/science.aau5153.
Friedlingstein, P., O'Sullivan, M., Jones, M. W. et al. (2020) Global Carbon Budget 2020. Earth System Science Data, 12, 3269–3340, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-3269-2020
This feature appeared in Environment, Coastal & Offshore (ECO) Magazine's 2022 Spring edition, to read more access the magazine here.
