CU Boulder researchers have developed a method that could enable scientists to accurately forecast ocean acidity up to five years in advance.
CU Boulder researchers have developed a method that could enable scientists to accurately forecast ocean acidity up to five years in advance. This would enable fisheries and communities that depend on seafood negatively affected by ocean acidification to adapt to changing conditions in real time, improving economic and food security in the next few decades.
Previous studies have shown the ability to predict ocean acidity a few months out, but this is the first study to prove it is possible to predict variability in ocean acidity multiple years in advance. The new method, described today in Nature Communications, offers potential to forecast the acceleration or slowdown of ocean acidification.
“We've taken a climate model and run it like you would have a weather forecast, essentially – and the model included ocean chemistry, which is extremely novel,” said Riley Brady, lead author of the study, and a doctoral candidate in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.
For this study the researchers focused on the California Current System, one of four major coastal upwelling systems in the world, which runs from the tip of Baja California in Mexico all the way up into parts of Canada. The system supports a billion-dollar fisheries industry crucial to the U.S. economy.
Read more at University Of Colorado At Boulder
Image: A composite image of blooming phytoplankton and swirling currents along the coast of California and western Mexico. (Credit: Norman Kuring / NASA)
