Committee offers guidance on how to increase managers’ confidence in acidification modeling effort

A stakeholder committee working to help researchers evaluate whether land-based pollution sources are influencing ocean acidification and hypoxia in Southern California’s coastal ocean has provided initial feedback about how to increase management confidence in a newly developed computer model that predicts local OAH conditions.

During a September meeting, the stakeholder committee provided SCCWRP and its modeling partners with multiple detailed steps to further validate the model. The committee, which is chaired by George Robertson of the Orange County Sanitation District, also identified a suite of managerially relevant scenarios that they want to see run through the model.

The modeling work in the Southern California Bight is part of a multi-year, West Coast-wide initiative to help managers understand which marine habitats are most vulnerable to ocean acidification and to what extent local, land-based sources of nutrients could be exacerbating coastal conditions.