Last updated: July 9, 2021
Article
Bay Area Parks Work with NOAA to Better Understand Ocean Acidification in the Rocky Intertidal and Beyond
Image courtesy of Wes Struble/NOAA
June 2021 - Like sea temperature rise, ocean acidification (OA) is a huge threat to marine life. But for now, it is harder to track remotely on a large scale. So this summer, seven West Coast national parks are teaming up with the 2021 National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) West Coast Ocean Acidification (WCOA) Cruise. They’re collecting water samples in-person to check several OA indicators. Their data will help paint the most detailed picture yet of OA conditions up and down the coast, from parks’ rocky intertidal zones to dozens of miles offshore.
The National Park Service (NPS) and NOAA tested a similar collaboration for the first time during NOAA’s 2016 WCOA Cruise. As scientists aboard the NOAA ship collected water samples offshore of Cabrillo National Monument and Olympic National Park, scientists at those parks collected samples from their intertidal zones. This time, scientists at Cabrillo National Monument, Channel Islands National Park, Olympic National Park, Point Reyes National Seashore, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Redwood National Park, and Lewis and Clark National Historical Park will all participate.
The 2021 WCOA cruise is heading from north to south. Along the way, it is pausing to travel along over a dozen established transects perpendicular to the coast. That will allow the scientists on board NOAA’s Ronald H. Brown research vessel to collect water samples at different depths and distances from shore. Olympic was the first park site it reached in late June. When it arrived, the scientists on shore had their sampling gear ready to go. Coordinating the timing of the sampling means the samples can be used to help decipher the spatial patterns of OA from the very edge of the shore, out to the sea.
For the NPS, the collaboration’s findings may help answer key questions. For instance, “Which parks’ intertidal communities are at greatest risk from OA?” In addition, the participating national parks are part of an extensive network of rocky intertidal monitoring sites from Alaska to Mexico. Their OA sampling will provide a valuable link between the broader West Coast OA and long-term rocky intertidal data sets.
For more information
- Check out the full web article, including an interactive map of sampling locations
- Pacific Coast Science & Learning Center Intertidal Ecosystems webpage
- San Francisco Bay Area Network Rocky Intertidal Monitoring webpage