FAQs about the LOC-NESS Project

Ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) leverages a natural 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. In fact, the ocean has naturally absorbed 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 heat and carbon 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 are 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 and reaffirmed at the conclusion of the COP28 UN climate conference in Dubai.  

Adam Subhas, an associate scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), is the principal investigator leading the LOC-NESS project—short for Locking away Ocean Carbon in the Northeast Shelf and Slope—that aims to investigate OAE’s potential to help mitigate the effects of human-caused climate change by accelerating the ocean’s ability to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere without exacerbating ocean acidification.

The goal of LOC-NESS is to understand whether a slight increase in sea-surface alkalinity will pull enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it safely in the ocean that, if the processes is scaled up, will help make an appreciable impact in the fight against climate change. The addition of an alkaline solution to seawater as part of OAE could also counteract localized ocean acidification driven by increases of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.  

At the same time, there is also concern that commercial interests will enact a large-scale OAE effort to reap financial gain in the growing carbon market without first testing its safety and effectiveness. For that reason, the LOC-NESS team is undertaking a limited, highly monitored experiment to test OAE’s ability to take up atmospheric carbon dioxide without harming the ocean or the people and organisms that rely on it. 

LOCNESS 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.  Private funders include Paul Salem, Chair of the WHOI Board of Trustees, who recently made a significant gift to accelerate ocean-based climate solutions, and the Lockhart Vaughn Foundation, among others.

LOC-NESS will not take funding from any group or individual that stands to profit from the eventual deployment of industrial-scale OAE efforts. 

In August 2023, a team from WHOI released 250 gallons of Rhodamine WT, a nontoxic, fluorescent dye, into federally controlled waters about 10 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard from the 90-foot research vessel R/V Connecticut and tracked the dye plume for 72 hours. The goal of the experiment was to test the scientists’ ability to “label” a patch of water with dye and track it over time to determine how long that patch of water stays at the surface. The reason scientists are interested in how the dye disperses—horizontally and vertically—and how fast the dispersal occurs, is because the alkaline solution must be at the ocean surface to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.  

Subsequent proposed field trials in 2024 will release an alkaline solution together with Rhodamine WT dye in roughly the same location and finally will release a larger amount of alkaline solution in the Gulf of Maine in 2025. Conducting this series of field experiments in the well-studied waters off the U.S. Northeast Coast will allow researchers to use the data they collect to assess the atmospheric and environmental impacts of carbon dioxide removal via OAE and to determine whether there is an optimal combination of observational and modeling capabilities to support a large-scale deployment of alkalinity. 

Rhodamine WT will act as a proxy for the alkalinity deployment and is not considered toxic and is considered safe by the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 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 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. 

Permission to release Rhodamine WT in federal waters is not required. Appropriate permits for the release of alkalinity in federal waters are being sought via publicly transparent channels. In addition, the LOC-NESS team is taking a careful, transparent approach by communicating with key regional stakeholders—aquaculture, fishermen’s alliances, and conservation groups—and with federal agencies. Our publicly accessible website will provide regular updates on the project.