SCAR Action Group on Southern Ocean Acidification

www.bjerknes.uib.no

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21002100

I PCCI PCC

AdaptedAdapted f rom a f rom a figurefigure by Christoph Heinzeby Christoph Heinze

Ocean acidification is the transformation of seawater towards an acidic state – it does not mean that the oceans will become acidic

IMBER, 2005

Today’s ocean pH is already below the glacial-interglacial range

Predicted Southern Ocean Acidification in the 21st century

[CO32-]Aragonite

[CO32-] = [CO3

2-] — [CO32-]sat

Orr et al. Nature 2005 McNeil and Matear, PNAS, 2008

Kleypas et al., 2006

The range of susceptible organisms is vast

Increasing CO2 also led to a change in community structure

100ppm

380ppm

800ppm

Why do we need a better understanding of ocean

acidification?

• To help explain changes in regional CO2 uptake• To determine the contributions of “natural” and

“excess” ocean acidification to global carbon cycling• To identify regionality and rates – OA hotspots,

robustness of marine biogeochemical systems• To inform on OA scenarios relevant for specific

ecosystems and organisms– Optimise observation/monitoring programs– Perform relevant pertubation experiments

SCAR Action Group on Ocean Acidification

Background:

To date there has not been a group focussing specifically on the evaluation of current understanding of ocean acidification in the southern Ocean and there is no coordination of Southern Ocean acidification research.

SCAR Life Sciences and Physical Sciences approved the formation of an Ocean Acidification Action Group

The initial membership of the group has been finalised and consists of a cross-disciplinary team of ocean acidification experts representing the fields of

•marine carbonate chemistry, •global and regional modelling, •marine ecology, •ecotoxicology/physiology

Initial SCAR OA Action Group

Richard Bellerby, Norwegian Institute for Water Research, Norway (Chair)

Claire Lo Monaco, IPSL, Paris, France Nikki Lovenduski, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA Ben McNeil, Climate Change Research Centre, University of New

South Wales, Australia Kurihara Haruko, University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, JAPAN Philip Tortell (University of British Columbia, Vancouver BC

Canada)

Progress so far Consultation with existing global ocean acidification efforts (e.g

SOLAS/IMBER Sub Group 3, US Ocean Carbon Biogeochemistry and the SCAR ICED and the SCAR Oceanography Expert Group.)

SCAR OA Action group meeting on ocean chemistry and plankton interactions was held in Tromsø, Sept 27-29 in conjunction with the “Acidification in aquatic environments” workshop.

Town Hall meeting at the XXXII SCAR and Open Science Conference in conjunction with the OA session

Currently a literature search is underway. Writing to begin in autumn 2012. Report submitted in SCAR Open Science conference in 2014

A second group meeting will be held in conjunction with the High CO2 meeting in Monterey in September 2012.

Work plan

OA session and AG Town hall meeting in Portland July 2012 Author meeting at High CO2 meeting, Monterey Sept 2012 Full author list complete by sept 2012 Sketch of each chapter complete by December 2012 Sketch sent out for wider consultation with appointed experts January 2013 Writing/review workshop in China/Hong Kong late summer 2013 Writing complete by December 2013 Printing completed by Spring 2014 Presentation of report SCAR meeting summer 2014

Budgetary implications

All present award will be used up by the end of this year through travel to OSC and for workshops. High costs associated with meetings due to the global spread of lead authors. This will increase as the author list increases although we will, when possible, hold some meetings over skype (accepting that the time zone coverage will make this difficult).

(Total) requested budget for 2013/14 $10k