About a decade ago, workers at an Oregon oyster farm began to notice that the baby oysters weren’t doing so well. The die-off of spats, as they’re called, happened around the same time that the farm, located in a coastal wetland, was experiencing unusually acidic seawater conditions. They suspected that the water’s increased acidity—in this case, due to an upwelling of deep coastal water—was harming the oysters.
Rising CO₂ is changing the chemistry, temperature, and currents of our oceans—shifts that ripple through marine ecosystems. Along California’s coast, researchers at the Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute study how naturally upwelled, acidified waters offer a window into future ocean conditions. With ocean buoys, moored sensors, and ship-based surveys, they monitor and model how climate-driven changes in acidification and upwelling affect marine life and coastal ecosystems.
