NECAN November 2015 Update
NECAN continues to write a technical document through engagement with various working groups; if you are interested in signing up for a working group, click here.
Award Winning NECAN
Last month, NECAN received an Outstanding Outreach Achievement group project award from the Northeast Sea Grant Consortium. Esperanza Stancioff from UMAINE Cooperative Extension and Maine Sea Grant, accepted the award on behalf of NECAN and the NECAN steering committee. NECAN was recognized for becoming “the Northeast’s leading organization for the synthesis and dissemination of regional ocean acidification data and information,” and serving as a platform to provide guidance for research and monitoring needs and gaps. Congratulations to the NECAN Steering Committee, as well as the Sea Grant representatives who also won individual awards for their efforts towards NECAN’s stakeholder engagement process.
OCA in Atlantic Canada workshop proceedings available
The latest workshop in the NECAN Stakeholder Engagement series was held in conjunction with the Canadian Fishermen’s Forum on October 6, 2015 in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. The meeting summary has been completed and is expected to be available on the NECAN website in early December. The next stakeholder engagement workshop will be held in Connecticut in January. Meeting summaries for each of the last four stakeholder engagement workshops can be found here.
CERF sessions
The 23rd biennial Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation (CERF) Conference was held in Portland, Oregon on November 8-12, 2015. In accordance with the conference’s "Grand Challenge" theme of "Synergistic effects of ocean acidification with hypoxia, eutrophication or other conditions,” several sessions on Ocean Acidification were held throughout the conference, including a “town hall” session on monitoring OA. Outcomes of the conference are still being discussed.
C-CAN Webinar: “pH Sensors from the Wendy Schmidt Ocean Health XPRIZE”
On November 5, 2015, C-CAN hosted a roundtable discussion where Dr. Jyotika Virmani, Senior Director of XPRIZE, and Matt Huelsenbeck, Prize Manager of XPRIZE, presented on “pH Sensors from the Wendy Schmidt Ocean Health XPRIZE.” XPRIZE is a non-profit organization that leads in incentivized problems for innovative technologies. The Wendy Schmidt Ocean Health XPRIZE was a $2 million competition for innovative pH and ocean sensor technologies that can be used to monitor and address OA. This webinar examined the successes and challenges of this competition, as well as some of the specific technologies that resulted from the XPRIZE. The webinar can be viewed here.
NECAN and OCA in the news
- Shellfish can’t keep up with shifting ocean chemistry (Portland Press Herald October 29, 2015)
- Scientists, shellfish growers wary of rise in ocean acidification (The Westerly Sun, November 21, 2015)
- Finding the local perspective on ocean acidification (MIT Sea Grant article highlighted in the Massachusetts Marine Educators Association autumn issue of their newsletter, F&J, pages 14-15, available to MME members only)
- A Sea Change: Rising acidity will cause dramatic shifts in phytoplankton species (MIT Technology Review, October 20, 2015)
- OP-ED: Our Deadened, Carbon-Soaked Seas (NY Times, October 15, 2015)
If you have any updates you’d like shared with NECAN, please email cassie@neracoos.org
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