My second week as an Oregon Sea Grant Scholar is coming to an end. This week has been incredibly exciting and justifiably greater than the last. I finalized values for expected sea-level rise by ecoregion and defended my numbers and sources in our weekly team meetings. I also moved on to researching more about ocean acidification. We are researching how climate change is impacting marine organisms, so we are using aragonite saturation as a measure of ocean acidification rather than pH. As the acidity in the ocean increases, carbonate decreases and so does aragonite saturation. Thus, the lower the aragonite saturation state, the more difficult it is for calcifying organisms to survive. My mentor, Henry Lee, has numbers for expected aragonite saturation by 2100 for each ecoregion provided by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), but these values were calculated for the middle of the ocean rather than off the coast—where the calcifying organisms are located. My task is to find expected aragonite saturation values to see if the IUCN numbers are valid.
Next week the EPA Pacific Coastal Ecological Branch is expecting EPA administrators from Washington to visit and another intern will be working in my office, so I am excited to go to work! Also, this past week I got an official EPA sign for my office door!
As far as social life is concerned, the summer interns are still having a blast. Several of the Sea Grant scholars and an REU intern went to Portland for the weekend and explored the city! We went to the Saturday Market, walked around Pioneer’s Place, went to Powell’s bookstore, shopped at Buffalo Exchange, and went to the Tigard farmer’s market!
Overall, I really feel like I’m growing as a person throughout this experience. My previous summers were lazy and very relaxed; but as I have a 9-5 workday during the week, I am making more of an effort to ensure that my weekend is full of fun in order to counteract the seriousness my work week. It has been tiring between working eight hours a day and finding time to socialize and have fun, but I think it has helped me appreciate time more. I’m excited to work next week, and I am excited to celebrate the 4th of July at Newport!
Thanks for explaining the connection between pH and calcifying organisms for people who might not know how that works. Will you be sampling along the coast for aragonite saturation values to confirm them?
What are Hatfield students doing for the 4th?
Great photo of the PDX sign! And glad to hear that you’re already successfully defending your scientific principles – that skill will serve you well in the future. What’s been your biggest scientific challenge so far?