A new set of buoys in Alaska waters will help scientists understand how climate change may be affecting the pH level of northern seas. Researchers placed the first buoy last month.

“This is the first dedicated ocean acidification mooring to be deployed in a high-latitude coastal sea,” said Jeremy Mathis, principal investigator for the project and an assistant professor of chemical oceanography at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “Other moorings have been deployed with ocean acidification sensors, but this is the first complete package in Alaska.”

The first buoy is at the mouth of Resurrection Bay, near Seward. It was assembled at UAF’s Seward Marine Center with the help of Chris Sabine, a senior scientist and co-principal investigator at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory.