Ocean Acidification - A Collaborative Response at the Seattle Aquarium

There are several exciting examples of scientific collaboration regarding ocean acidification (OA) to highlight. At the state level, the Washington state legislature established the Washington Ocean Acidification Center (WOAC) in July, 2013. A principal goal of the Center is to implement five actions recommended by the Washington Blue Ribbon Panel on Ocean Acidification and endorsed by the legislature (http://coenv.washington.edu/research/major-initiatives/ocean-acidification/). The work underway on these actions, which includes integrated monitoring, experimental work on local species, and modeling of OA conditions, will be presented. On the regional to national level, the Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems (NANOOS) has been working with the US Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) and NOAA’s Ocean Acidification Program to integrate observations, data, and stakeholders, including shellfish growers and local and tribal natural resource managers. NANOOS’s data delivery system serves data streams from diverse partners, like NOAA PMEL, UW, Taylor Shellfish, Lummi Shellfish/Pacific Shellfish Institute, and the Seattle Aquarium, through its visualization system (NVS: http://nvs.nanoos.org/). This data system connects to national databases via IOOS and also to the global scale. UW and NOAA have played key roles to foster international coordination on OA observing. The plan defining a Global OA Observing Network stemmed from a 2012 NOAA workshop UW hosted with scientists from 23 nations. The Center is well connected to these national and global efforts. WOAC is also playing a key role in promoting other ocean acidification relevant activities that include coordination with the Seattle Aquarium. UW has long partnered with NOAA PMEL to observe OA in PNW waters (e.g., Feely et al., 2010); this effort includes NOAA PMEL sensors located at the Seattle Aquarium. More recently, the Center is partnering with NOAA PMEL, the Seattle Aquarium, and the XPRIZE Foundation in their effort to test new instruments capable of measuring OA variables. OA is a global problem with local effects. This issue demands our coordinated response, which is happening at several scales, as outlined here. The Center will continue to work through local to global partnerships to bring knowledge on OA to Washington