OA Educational Tools

Images, animations, and short presentations on OA

Decades of ocean observations show that fundamental changes in seawater chemistry are occurring throughout the world's oceans, including the process called OCEAN ACIDIFICATION. If you are a student, educator, or simply interested in learning more about ocean acidification, below are a number of educational resources that describe the changing chemistry of the oceans and the potential impacts on marine ecosystems.

Ocean Acidification Visualizations

Below is an animation showing a computer recreation of surface ocean pH from 1895 to the present and a forecast of ocean pH between now and 2100 under business as usual emission scenarios. Purple dots show cold-water coral reefs. Red dots show warm-water coral reefs. The pH scale is shown on the right. Increasing acidity is a relative shift in pH to a lower value.

Ocean Acidification on Science On a Sphere: In collaboration with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and NOAA's Environmental Visualization Laboratory, we developed animations for use on Science On a Sphere® that show computer model simulations of surface ocean pH and carbonate mineral saturation state for the years 1895 to 2094.

Ocean Acidification Impacts Coral Reefs: NOAA's Environmental Visualization Laboratory developed an animation showing model data of how the availability of calcium carbonate is predicted to decrease over the next century at a depth of 10 meters in the ocean—where most corals occur. Unfortunately this animation has been removed from this web site.

Ocean Acidification: The Other Carbon Dioxide Problem: NOAA's Environmental Visualization Laboratory produced a 4 minute video explaining what ocean acidification is and the potential impacts to marine ecosystems.

Ocean Acidification Lectures

ASLO Contemporary Issues Lectures on Ocean Acidification, including an "Overview of Ocean Acidification" by Dr. Richard Feely: Limnology and Oceanography e-Lectures are prepared by experts on particular topics and are intended to serve as a resource for member educators and researchers, to assist them in bringing the most recent and cutting edge science and non-traditional teaching techniques into undergraduate and graduate aquatic science courses. Full lectures are available to members and partial PDF versions are public.

Short Course on Ocean Acidification: The Ocean Carbon & Biogeochemistry (OCB) Project Office with co-sponsorship from the European Project on Ocean Acidification (EPOCA) coordinated and hosted a hands-on ocean acidification short course from November 2-13, 2009 at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA. See the OCB webpage for archived materials and video footage of lectures.

Ocean Acidification Impacts on Shellfish Workshop: This workshop was planned to bring together stakeholders from the U.S. west coast who are working to understand and address ocean acidification. Fifty participants were invited from the shellfish industry, regulatory agencies, and research institutions. They received presentations on a variety of topics and took part in discussions to address key questions related to the goals of the workshop. See the workshop website for archived presentations and the final report and recommendations.