The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center’s DOOM lab (Dissolved Oxygen and Oyster Mortality) is examining how oysters respond to sudden drops in oxygen levels in shallow parts of the Chesapeake Bay at night. These fluctuations are partially natural, but appear to be made worse by nitrogen and phosphorus pollution. Oxygen depletion may make oysters more susceptible [...]
NCCOS-funded scientists working under the auspices of the NOAA Ocean Acidification Program were recently introduced to the internal research community at special roll-out and open discussion at the Third International Symposium on the Ocean in a High-CO2 World. Three U.S. ocean acidification researchers were recently awarded NOAA Ocean Acidification Program extramural funding. The roll-out introduced [...]
Kris Holderied, who directs the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Kasitsna Bay Laboratory, says the ocean’s increasing acidity is “the reason fishermen stop me in the grocery store.” “They say, ‘You’re with the NOAA lab, what are you doing on ocean acidification?’ ” Holderied said. “This is a coastal town that depends on this ocean, and [...]
A research paper published this week reveals that large die-offs of algae locally magnify ocean acidification. As the cells die and sinks to the bottom, the bacteria population that feeds on them swells in response, consuming more oxygen and releasing more carbon dioxide (CO2). The CO2 reacts in seawater to form acidic compounds that lower [...]
A new kind of witchy interaction is underway in the oceans, report the authors of a new paper in Environmental Science & Technology. William G. Sunda and Wei-Jun Cai created a model to predict how CO2 from water pollution—that is, runoff from chemical fertilizers (farms), human waste (sewage), and animal waste (feedlots, ranches), plus nitrogen [...]
As scientists continue to research ways in which the oceans are changing – and what these changes mean for fish populations, three new research projects will receive funding to examine the effects of ocean acidification on fisheries, and the coastal economies that depend upon them. Ocean acidification occurs when the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide from [...]
Dissolution of carbon dioxide (CO2) from rising atmospheric CO2 is acidifying ocean water; but a second environmental problem, eutrophication, is having a similar effect in coastal bottom waters. This occurs because anthropogenic inputs of nutrients fuel massive algal blooms, which deplete bottom waters of oxygen (O2) and release CO2 when the organic matter from these blooms is respired by [...]
Standing on the shores of Netarts Bay in Oregon on a sunny fall morning, it’s hard to imagine that the fate of the oysters being raised here at the Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery is being determined by what came out of smokestacks and tailpipes in the 1960s and ‘70s. But this rural coastal spot and [...]