Integrating high-resolution coastal acidification monitoring data across seven United States estuaries

Beginning in 2015, the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) National Estuary Program (NEP) started a collaboration with partners in seven estuaries along the East Coast (Barnegat Bay; Casco Bay), West Coast (Santa Monica Bay; San Francisco Bay; Tillamook Bay), and the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) Coast (Tampa Bay; Mission-Aransas Estuary) of the United States to expand the use of autonomous monitoring of partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO₂) and pH. Analysis of high-frequency (hourly to sub-hourly) coastal acidification data including pCO₂, pH, temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen (DO) indicate that the sensors effectively captured key parameter measurements under challenging environmental conditions, allowing for an initial characterization of daily to seasonal trends in carbonate chemistry across a range of estuarine settings. Multi-year monitoring showed that across all water bodies temperature and pCO₂ covaried, suggesting that pCO₂ variability was governed, in part, by seasonal temperature changes with average pCO₂ being lower in cooler, winter months and higher in warmer, summer months. Furthermore, the timing of seasonal shifts towards increasing (or decreasing) pCO₂ varied by location and appears to be related to regional climate conditions. Specifically, pCO₂ increases began earlier in the year in warmer water, lower latitude water bodies in the GOM (Tampa Bay; Mission-Aransas Estuary) as compared with cooler water, higher latitude water bodies in the northeast (Barnegat Bay; Casco Bay), and upwelling-influenced West Coast water bodies (Tillamook Bay; Santa Monica Bay; San Francisco Bay). Results suggest that both thermal and non-thermal influences are important drivers of pCO₂ in Tampa Bay and Mission-Aransas Estuary. Conversely, non-thermal processes, most notably the biogeochemical structure of coastal upwelling, appear to be largely responsible for the observed pCO₂ values in West Coast water bodies. The co-occurrence of high salinity, high pCO₂, low DO, and low temperature water in Santa Monica Bay and San Francisco Bay characterize the coastal upwelling paradigm that is also evident in Tillamook Bay when upwelling dominates freshwater runoff and local processes. These data demonstrate that high-quality carbonate chemistry observations can be recorded from estuarine environments using autonomous sensors originally designed for open-ocean settings.