About the UK Ocean Acidification Research Programme
Background
Widespread concerns about ocean acidification
emerged after the
Royal Society Report "Ocean acidification due to increasing
atmospheric CO2'‘ in 2005. Research at that time was
limited to a few individuals. Since then numerous other national
and international organisations have called for increased research
effort into this emerging science area. The £12M, 5 year UK Ocean
Acidification Research Programme (UKOA) is the UK’s response
and is jointly funded by the Department for Environment, Food and
Rural Affairs (Defra), the Natural Environment Research Council
(NERC) and the Department of Energy and Climate Change
(DECC).
Aims
- to reduce uncertainties in predictions of
carbonate chemistry changes and their effects on marine
biogeochemistry, ecosystems and other components of the Earth
System
- to understand the responses to ocean
acidification, and other climate change related stressors, by
marine organisms, biodiversity and ecosystems and to improve
understanding of their resistance or susceptibility to
acidification
- to provide data and effective advice to
policy makers and managers of marine bioresources on the potential
size and timescale of risks, to allow for development of
appropriate mitigation and adaptation strategies
The outputs of this programme will feed into
the cross-government "Climate Change Adaptation" programme and it
is anticipated that this programme will make a significant
contribution to the Living With Environmental Change (LWEC)
programme.
The programme will take advantage of
international collaboration opportunities, primarily with the
German ocean acidification programme
(BIOACID), the European research programme
(EPOCA),the Mediterranean
programme (MedSeA) and potentially with the emerging
US ocean acidification research programme.