2025 NECAN Report: Ocean and Coastal Acidification Monitoring Priorities
New NECAN Resource: Ocean and Coastal Acidification (OCA) Monitoring Priorities for the Northeast US and Eastern Canada
Over the past four years, the Northeast Coastal Acidification Network (NECAN) community has worked together to identify the most critical needs for tracking ocean and coastal acidification in the Northeast US and Eastern Canada. The “Ocean and Coastal Acidification Monitoring Priorities” report, co-authored by Carolina Bastidas (MIT Sea Grant), Austin Pugh (Northeastern Regional Association of Coastal Ocean Observing Systems – NERACOOS) and a team of other contributors, outlines key gaps, challenges, and opportunities for the future of the ocean acidification monitoring network in the Northeast. This resource draws upon the expertise of scientists, resource managers, and stakeholders across the region and aims to inform and guide future monitoring actions.
NECAN organized a webinar series to study regional needs, culminating in a workshop that led to the identification of six new monitoring needs, in addition to the maintenance of current monitoring efforts:
- Improve spatial and temporal scale of monitoring co-located OCA variables and biological measurements to better resolve variability of acidification dynamics in concert with biological processes
- Increase subsurface monitoring to understand how conditions vary at depth
- Increase the number of high-frequency monitoring assets that measure at least two of four carbon parameters
- Increase near-real-time and rapid response observing capacity for episodic events
- Determine fluxes and rates that would help parameterize and constrain regional modeling efforts to understand past conditions and project future trends
- Increase spatial coverage of “climate”-quality observations
Report Editors: Christopher W. Hunt, University of New Hampshire; Austin Pugh, NERACOOS
Report Editorial Team: Jake Kritzer (co-chair), NERACOOS; Samantha Siedlecki (co-chair), University of Connecticut; Kumiko Azetsu-Scott, Fisheries and Oceans Canada; Carolina Bastidas, MIT Sea Grant; Parker Gassett, Maine Climate Science Information Exchange Office, University of Maine; Christopher W. Hunt, University of New Hampshire; Diane Lavoie, Fisheries and Oceans Canada; Adam Pimenta, US Environmental Protection Agency; Austin Pugh, NERACOOS; Amy Trice, Northeast Regional Ocean Council; Elizabeth Turner, NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (retired)
Suggested Citation: Hunt, C.W., Pugh, A. D., Kritzer, J., Siedlecki, S., Azetsu-Scott, K., Bastidas, C., Gassett, P., Lavoie, D., Mlsna, I., Pimenta, A., Trice, A., Turner, E. 2025. Ocean and Coastal Acidification Monitoring Priorities for the Northeast US and Eastern Canada. Northeast Coastal Acidification Network Report, https://eartharxiv.org/repository/view/8023, DOI: https://doi.org/10.31223/X5XH7M
