Climatologies of saturation state and pH

Developing tools for the public to interact with data

The buoy team of PMEL's Carbon Group has recently developed innovative tools to better connect stakeholders to information generated by NOAA’s Ocean Acidification Observing Network.

Based on recent peer-reviewed research, we have designed interactive plots for other scientists, students, and stakeholders to explore monthly data distribution and assess potential biological thresholds at select buoy locations.

See below for an example from a location off the Washington coast or click on the following links to explore these new climatologies in other coastal, coral reef, and open ocean ecosystems. Check back as we add more sites!

 

Monthly climatology of surface seawater aragonite saturation state (Ω) and pH from coastal WA buoy observations:

Interactive box plots below are observations binned by month as described in Sutton et al., 2016. Pie charts represent % of observations within each month that fall below the adjustable line. This adjustable line is meant to provide a tool for assessing potential biological thresholds. For example, setting the line to Ωaragonite of ~2.0 would assess monthly exposure of Pacific oyster larvae to sub-lethal chronic effects in regions where these larvae occur naturally or in hatcheries (see studies here and here).

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