On 7 and 8 May, EMODnet Chemistry and NOAA organised a hybrid event in Venice (Italy) entitled 'International workshop to advance ocean carbon and acidification data management and interoperability'. The workshop is the result of the international collaboration between EMODnet Chemistry, NOAA and UNESCO, which aims to provide more accurate and detailed data on ocean carbon systems. The ICOS Research Infrastructure also attended. This is crucial to help decision-makers take data-driven action against the effects of ocean acidification and to communicate more clearly on the topic. To this end, participants discussed how to enable a global comparison of changes in ocean chemistry and provide a unified, globally coordinated, sustainable and long-term observation network and database.
Monitoring and reporting data on ocean acidification is part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and the targets of the 2030 Agenda. In particular, SDG target 14.3 is to “Minimise and address the impacts of ocean acidification, including through enhanced scientific cooperation at all levels” and the associated SDG indicator 14.3.1 helps assess average ocean acidity (pH) measured at an agreed set of representative sampling stations. The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO was identified as the custodian agency for the SDG Target 14.3 and the IOC/IODE SDG 14.3.1 Data Portal was developed to submit, collect, validate, store and share ocean acidification data and metadata.
The workshop was attended by 34 international experts in ocean acidification and data management. Participants discussed data management and infrastructure needs, a planned international data management network consisting of multiple data access centres, and data and metadata standards such as controlled vocabularies.
There was broad agreement on the need to develop a long-term vision for carbon and acidification data management and short-term follow-up actions for its gradual implementation. Both will focus on the needs of the research community and involve all major data access centres working towards common goals. Various working groups have been set up to take specific actions such as governance of the whole process, integration of metadata, QC and vocabularies, analysis of data workflows and development of a federated data view.
The follow-up to the meeting will be discussed at the annual workshop of the global Advancing Earth and Space Sciences (AGU) community in December.