Framing
Ocean health is vital to the stability and habitability of California and the planet. Increased ocean acidification impacts Earth's oceans in many ways, particularly harming calcifying organisms like shellfish and corals that play a critical role in ocean ecosystems. Ocean acidification occurs naturally due to upwelling of deep acidic waters into surface water, but has increased dramatically in the past 100 years through the absorption of excess CO2 in the atmosphere. If ocean acidification continues at the current rate, ocean ecosystems are expected to deteriorate dramatically. In California, about 70% of the state's population resides along a coastal ocean area known as the California Current Ecosystem (CCE) that supports a unique variety of life. The CCE provides many benefits to Californians as a source of food and recreation, and as a carbon sink, but it is at risk of degradation in part due to ocean acidification.
Policy spotlight
* CA AB 2139 (2016) Ocean Protection Council: ocean acidification and hypoxia mandated the Ocean Protection Council to establish an Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia science task force within California to address the concern of ocean acidification and contributed to the development of the California Ocean Acidification Action Plan. * CA SB 1363 (2016) Ocean Protection Council: Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia Reduction Program required the Ocean Protection Council to coordinate ocean protection and regulation in the state and created the Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia Reduction Program to take specific actions to mitigate and prevent ocean acidification.
Justice lens
* Communities which depend upon the ocean for its economic and social benefits will be the most impacted by changes in marine ecosystems. Globally, about 50% of people in the least developed countries rely on fish as their primary source of protein, leaving them vulnerable to changes in fish populations as a result of ocean acidification. On the West Coast of the US, including California, numerous communities scoring high on the community social vulnerability index also show significant commercial fishing reliance, particularly in Northern California, Oregon, and Washington.
Source & citation
Content on this page draws from The California Doughnut Snapshot and Report, used under CC-BY 4.0.
Aritza, A. and Kraus-Polk, J. et al. (2025). The California Doughnut Snapshot and Report. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17540639