Global Ocean Acidity and pH Projections from 1770 to 2100

360 longitudinal and 179 latitudinal grid cells provide monthly surface ocean pH, acidity, and Revelle Factor data from the pre-industrial year 1770 to 2100. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information produced this climatology by merging over 23 million observations from the Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas with Earth System Model trends. The data covers historical periods and future scenarios based on IPCC RCP pathways.

Use Cases

• Analyzing long-term pH trends at specific grid coordinates under different RCP scenarios.
• Mapping regional variability in ocean buffer capacity using the Revelle Factor field.
• Calibrating Earth System Models by comparing modeled pH trajectories against the observation-based climatology.
• Studying seasonal cycles of hydrogen ion activity (acidity) across the 12 monthly data layers.

Strengths

• Covers 331 years of data from 1770 to 2100, spanning pre-industrial to future projections.
• Integrates ~23 million direct observations from the Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCATv6).
• Provides data on a 1x1 degree global grid with 360x179 spatial resolution.

Limitations

• Projections from 2005 onward are model-based scenarios, not observations.
• Spatial resolution of 1 degree may miss fine-scale coastal processes.
• The underlying observational product (SOCATv6) ends in 2018, limiting modern validation.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI Accession 0206289), based on research published in Nature Scientific Reports.

Collection Method

Generated by combining the SOCATv6 observational product with temporal trends from the NOAA GFDL ESM2M Earth System Model.

Time Range

1770 to 2100, with data points for every decade and all 12 months.

Freshness

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Geography

Global surface ocean, longitude 20.5 to 379.5 degrees, latitude -89.5 to 89.5 degrees.