FAQs about the LOC-NESS Project

Ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) makes use of a natural ocean process to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by adding an alkaline solution to the sea surface. The ocean's pH (level of acidity/alkalinity) governs its ability to take up the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and has enabled it to absorb as much as one-quarter to one-third of human emissions since the dawn of the Industrial Age. The ocean's capacity to take up carbon (and heat) from the atmosphere helps regulate the climate system and has prevented much greater temperature increases over the past century. But this has also caused the ocean to gradually acidify, potentially causing severe impacts to species and ecosystems worldwide.  

While emission reductions remain key to minimizing human impact on Earth's climate, it has become clear in recent years that drastic emission reductions must be supplemented by efforts to actively remove existing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in order to meet internationally accepted targets outlined in the Paris Climate Agreement. 

The LOC-NESS project-short for Locking away Ocean Carbon in the Northeast Shelf and Slope-aims to better understand the safety and effectiveness of OAE.

The goals of LOC-NESS are to:

1. Evaluate how regional ocean conditions and human activities would interact with OAE
2. Conduct realistic laboratory experiments that assess the biological impacts and the engineered safety of OAE
3. Design and conduct a small scale, highly monitored field trial of alkalinity enhancement
4. Use an ocean model to expand upon the field trial data
5. Engage with communities who care about the impact of OAE on regional waters

While emission reductions are key to minimizing human impact on Earth's climate, it has become clear in recent years that emission reductions must be supplemented by efforts to actively remove existing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to meet internationally accepted targets outlined in the Paris Climate Agreement and reaffirmed at the conclusion of the COP28 UN climate conference in Dubai.   

LOC-NESS is pursuing this research in response to demand from the world's leading scientific bodies, including the National Academies of Science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and recently the White House's Research Strategy  on marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR). The federal government also recently announced  it is developing guidelines for mCDR.

Current technology cannot meet these goals, and new tools and processes are needed to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Ocean alkalinity enhancement could enhance the ocean's natural mechanisms for removing carbon from the atmosphere. OAE alone will not be enough, but it may be one of the many tools applied at scale if it can be demonstrated to be both safe and effective.  

There is a concern that commercial interests will enact a large-scale OAE efforts to reap financial gain in the growing voluntary carbon market without first testing its safety and effectiveness. For that reason, the LOC-NESS team is undertaking a limited, highly monitored experiment, in addition to laboratory experiments and ocean modeling, to test OAE's ability to take up atmospheric carbon dioxide at a small scale that minimizes any potential impact to the environment in order to help regulators, policy-makers, and society more broadly assess the risks and benefits of OAE.  

The LOC-NESS Project is carefully designed to answer essential questions about the effectiveness and environmental impacts of OAE, but it is not a pathway to, or an endorsement for, OAE.

LOC-NESS is funded through a collection of non-profit, government, and private sources. The major philanthropic funders include the Carbon-to-Sea Initiative, which was recently launched to accelerate the understanding of OAE, and ICONIQ Impact, ICONIQ Capital's platform for collaborative philanthropy, which searches for overlooked, underfunded organizations working on some of the most intractable challenges facing humanity and has matched the funding from Carbon to Sea for the LOC-NESS project. Supplemental support from the National Ocean Partnership Program (NOPP) overseen by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will allow the project team to do enhanced environmental monitoring.

However, this project is not a pathway to, or an endorsement for, OAE. The project team is made up of scientists, engineers, and communicators who are committed to a transparent, rigorous, scientific evaluation of OAE. LOC-NESS is not a company selling CO₂ credits and is not participating in the carbon market.

For more, please read WHOI's Position on Research Independence and Integrity and Position Statement on Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal. 

During deployment, the LOC-NESS team will also release Rhodamine WT, a non-toxic dye that is considered safe by the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in water tracing studies. It is particularly useful because small amounts of the dye are detectable in water using relatively simple instruments. The dye has been used for decades to study such things as the movement of pollution in freshwater and marine ecosystems and has been found to be safe for use in marine environments. 

During the project's 2023 dye release field experiment, the Rhodamine WT was visible to the naked eye for several hours after the deployment. The science team also used instruments on the ship and towed through the water, as well as airborne drones, satellites, and a CTD rosette water sampler, to track the plume for 36 hours. They also surveyed the planktonic communities and water chemistry as background for later experiments. 

While the alleviation of ocean acidification is a positive outcome of OAE, careful research is needed to determine safe operating thresholds for the addition of alkalinity to the marine environment and its impact on larger organisms such as copepods. During LOC-NESS field trials, the LOC-NESS project will operate within a pH range considered safe for aquatic life and will maintain strict environmental monitoring protocols. After alkalinity release, the team will undertake continuous, 24-hour monitoring operations of the alkalinity patch using a suite of instruments, sensors, and sampling equipment, guided by the results of the 2023 dye release trial and best scientific practices for OAE. The results of these monitoring efforts will provide some of the first in-water measurements of the safety of OAE, including its impacts on water chemistry, the marine food web, and larger organisms such as copepods. 

For the dye-only field trial in summer of 2023, no permit was required, as the water tracer used, called Rhodamine WT, is common in oceanographic studies. 

The LOC-NESS Project is the first to apply for permitting for marine carbon dioxide removal activities through the EPA under the Marine Protection, Resources, and Sanctuaries Act (MPRSA). Our application is currently under consideration. 

We are taking an intentional, transparent approach communicating with key interested parties, including policymakers, state and federal regulators, tribal communities, commercial fishing industry members, recreational anglers, nonprofits, for-profit businesses, and the general public. Since spring 2024, the team has hosted or participated in nearly 40 community engagement and outreach activities, including in-person and online meetings, and reached more than 1,200 people .

The LOC-NESS permit application was open for public comment from May 30 - July 11, 2024 and the EPA received 115 comments, including many that from scientists and environmental organizations that expressed support for research like this that advances understanding of OAE.

We also distributed a survey to a growing community contact list, which was shared further through several community group newsletters, soliciting feedback on the study location and the focus of future laboratory experiments. Twenty-six people responded to the survey, for which the majority identified as commercial fishing industry members.

The project team has incorporated much of this feedback into a revised research program and is committed to continuing in-person outreach and engagement efforts and will provide additional updates via our website. If you would like to be involved in our engagement and outreach efforts, please reach out to our project team: locness@whoi.edu; or the lead investigator: asubhas@whoi.edu.

The dye-only trial the LOC-NESS team conducted in September 2023 was indispensable to planning for the upcoming alkalinity dispersal trials. An analysis of data gathered on the trial made our monitoring strategy for the proposed alkalinity trial more efficient and has allowed us to increase monitoring efforts in critical places. We had the chance to test all major equipment and gain practical experience in assessing the impacts of alkalinity enhancement in the open ocean. We also gained confidence that our methods are capable of tracking a patch of alkalinity-enhanced water well after we are no longer able to measure changes in alkalinity and the water has returned to baseline conditions.

We first postponed the 2024 field trial south of Cape Cod from August to September 2024 to allow for a longer public comment period to our EPA permit application. We postponed the trial to 2025 due to a scheduling issue when the ship we had originally reserved to be diverted to another project. 

Pending permission from the Environmental Protection Agency, the team plans to hold the field trial in Federal waters off of Massachusetts in the Wilkinson Basin of the Gulf of Maine.  

The location and timing of the field trial was selected based on three factors: 

• Ocean chemistry and physics: Northern oceans are relatively acidic, making them particularly well suited to OAE studies. The specific location and timing was also selected to minimize environmental impact and to increase the amount of time the enhanced alkalinity remained in the surface seawater layer due to natural summer stratification that occurs here.   

• Favorable logistics: These regions are easily accessible by oceanographers at WHOI as well as commercial dispersal vessels. 

• Existing Research: The site has been the location of highly relevant previous research that provides valuable baseline scientific information for these field trials.    

Model studies and direct measurements of the ocean currents indicate that the most likely surface current in the area will be directed away from land.   

Yes. This research will not impact commercial vessel activity in the area for the duration of the experiment with the exception of the 4-6 hour period of release of the alkalinity, when a safety perimeter will be required.

With the delay of the field trial from 2024 to 2025, we have conducted additional laboratory and flume testing as well as high resolution fluid dynamics modeling that allowed us to achieve the main goal of refining the design of the dispersal strategy. In addition, we were able to incorporate feedback from the public during the open comment period and during public outreach events. As a result, we are pursuing only one field trial that will be reduced by a factor of 75% (from 200 to 50 metric tons of alkalinity) at the proposed Wilkinson Basin site in the Gulf of Maine. We will monitor the patch of seawater with elevated alkalinity for at least 7 days. This reduced size of the experiment allows our team to deploy the monitoring technologies originally proposed, including autonomous gliders and satellite imagery, while scaling down the environmental impact. 

The field trial will consist of one controlled and monitored dispersal of up to 50 metric tons of sodium hydroxide (added as a 50% solution in freshwater totaling 16,500 gallons) and Rhodamine WT water tracer dye (dissolved in fresh water). This will be followed by at least seven days of on-site, continuous, 24-hour monitoring of alkalinity dispersal, carbon dioxide uptake, and environmental impacts. Dispersal will take place on the first day of the trial, over roughly four hours. These amounts are required to establish a patch of seawater with elevated alkalinity that can tracked for several days and potentially measure carbon dioxide uptake over the roughly seven-day experiment, while remaining within federal and state established water quality limits. As an analogy, our proposed alkalinity addition is equivalent to adding a teaspoon of liquid to a full bathtub. 

The experiment will provide valuable in-water data to demonstrate the real-world effectiveness of OAE, develop protocols for measuring carbon dioxide uptake, and help establish the potential environmental impacts of this technology. 

Our experiments employ high-purity sodium hydroxide (NaOH) to adjust the pH of the sea surface. The material is colorless, odorless and, when dissolved in fresh water, minimizes potential impacts of other alkalinity sources (increased particles and turbidity, interference with larger organisms, heavy metal byproducts). Because of its purity, the effects on water quality are limited only to the effect on pH. Sodium hydroxide is commonly used in the U.S. by local municipalities to reduce the acidity of drinking water to levels that are safe for human consumption, and it does not bioaccumulate. It is regularly used in commercial and residential baking, for example, giving soft pretzels their characteristic brown shine.   

All of the monitoring approaches are based on the technical expertise of team members and are consistent with best practices for oceanographic research. Lead investigator Adam Subhas is a co-author of the recently published "Best Practices Guide for Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement Research," which documents the current state of knowledge for conducting field experiments, biological and laboratory studies, and handling and analyzing samples of ocean alkalinity enhancement research.    

The alkalinity release described here will be continuously monitored using state-of-the art scientific equipment and research vessels to establish the efficacy of carbon dioxide uptake via OAE and the extent of environmental impacts. The monitoring will continue well after the dispersal occurs, until alkalinity and dye is no longer detectable above baseline values.  

The main variables measured include temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, pH, total alkalinity, pCO2, dye concentration, particulate matter composition and plankton community. The team will use a range of platforms that allow for deployment of different types of instrumentation and receive measurements back in real-time. A profiling vehicle will be towed behind the ship that will provide real-time, continuous data throughout the trial. Free-drifting buoys equipped with rhodamine dye, water quality sensors, and GPS will passively follow experimental progress, providing a secondary means to track the plume. The ship's underway pumped seawater system will be outfitted with instruments that measure pH, alkalinity, pCO2, temperature, salinity, and dye concentration, allowing the ship to continuously measure surface water conditions during the survey. Drone and satellite imagery will show the extent of the dye and alkalinity patch at the surface. Water samples and plankton tows will be collected as part of the environmental impact monitoring. Autonomous underwater gliders will also be deployed to measure the background site before the dispersal begins and monitor the dispersal and subsequent dilution. A suite of five Spray2 gliders will be deployed (and later recovered), equipped with a suite of sensors (temperature, salinity, oxygen, pH, rhodamine water tracer fluorescence and chlorophyll fluorescence) along with devices capable of measuring zooplankton distribution.    

Our field trial team will also include a trained protected species observer (PSO), who will keep continuous watch for protected and endangered species during the dispersal period of operations as well as collect data on any sightings and behavior if protected species are encountered. If protected species are observed, the PSO will be able to halt dispersal operations until the protected species is no longer present in the area. 

Based on lab studies, modeling, and field-based research, the effect of enhanced alkalinity as proposed in these field studies is predicted to be either mild or even positive for treated waters. The project will carefully mix in the sodium hydroxide so the seawater remains below pH 8.5, a limit established by the EPA (EPA "Gold Book", 1986), within 30 seconds and will affect only a relatively small number of phytoplankton and zooplankton located directly in the discharge area. Baseline data has shown that the Wilkinson Basin area of the Gulf of Maine has relatively low abundances of phytoplankton, zooplankton, commercial fish larvae, and endangered species during the summertime. After the dispersal, the alkaline seawater will continue to dilute and mix into surrounding  waters, further reducing its pH, increasing its dilution, until it returns to a baseline state

While previous studies indicate no significant impacts to the biological community, the effects of large-scale OAE on marine ecosystems during real-world deployments have not been evaluated. As a result, it is critical to validate these findings through in-water experiments so appropriate conditions can be put in place for larger OAE operations in the future. One potential outcome from our work is also that OAE may not be as effective in practice as it appears on paper. This is a perfectly reasonable outcome, and one that should be determined by rigorous independent, scientific monitoring by institutions like WHOI rather than a for-profit enterprise with a vested interest in the outcome of the experiment. 

The LOC-NESS project is committed to open and transparent documentation of the effectiveness and environmental impacts observed during the field trial. This carefully monitored, real-world field trial is a necessary and critical part of evaluating marine CDR techniques. Data and other project products will be made publicly available through the project website and through publicly available data repositories when manuscripts are published.   

No. The field trial will occur 38 miles offshore. Previous work on ocean currents indicates that the dispersed alkalinity and dye will move away from shore once in the ocean.  

In order for ocean alkalinity to be effective, it needs to stay in surface waters, and the field trial will be confined to the upper 5-10 meters of the water column. The team does not expect the field trials to impact submerged resources such as benthic shellfish, submerged aquatic vegetation, cultural/archaeological sites, or other similar resources. 

The purpose of these field trial experiments is to determine the efficacy and environmental safety of OAE. Neither WHOI, nor the LOC-NESS project team endorse OAE as a climate mitigation strategy. LOC-NESS is not a company selling CO2 credits and is not participating in the carbon market. Showing that OAE is not safe or effective will be just as important to share as a result demonstrating the promise of this technique to help guide future decisions about how to address climate change.

LOC-NESS is committed to openly sharing the data collected through all aspects of this effort. For more, please read WHOI's Position on Research Independence and Integrity and Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal. 

A general project email that is monitored daily is locness@whoi.edu.   

If you specifically need to reach out to the lead scientist, Adam Subhas, his email is asubhas@whoi.edu.