Research Teams Studying Ocean Acidification

A research team led by UCSB professor Gretchen Hofmann and supported by the National Science Foundation recently retrieved a sensor from Antarctic waters that will provide critical data on acidification in the remote seas. The pH decrease in Earth’s oceans is caused by too much human-produced CO2 that dissolves into the seas and wreaks havoc on marine ecosystems. “One of our central research challenges is to forecast whether species will be able to adapt to a rapidly changing environment,” Hofmann said in a prepared statement. “It is critical to obtain current measurements of pH to help understand the environment that organisms will face in the future.”