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Tonights topic is Ocean Acidification.  The 2010 Alaska Marine Science Symposium was held downtown at the Hotel Captain Cook this past week.  We had some of the world’s leading marine scientists gathered.  This is a timely program as Governor Sean Parnell is at war with the federal government over the EPA’s polar bear listing and Senator Lisa Murkowski wants to prevent the EPA from regulating green house gas emissions-which directly impact ocean acidification.

Pteropod: the canary in the coal mine?

On this week’s show, we interviewed Michelle Ridgway.  Michelle just retired after nine years serving on the Advisory Panel of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council which oversees the largest fisheries in the world.  She currently works as a marine ecologist, specializing in benthic ecosystems.  She pilots three single-person submersibles and own and operate ROVS (remotely operated vehicles), as well as dives and uses sonar survey methods for seabed classification.  Michelle founded a not-for-profit organization dedicated to advancing deep sea research and education called Alaska Deep Ocean Science Institute. 

Our panelists:

Jeremy T. Mathis is an Assistant Professor of Chemical Oceanography at the University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Fisheries and Oceanography. 

Dr. Thomas Hurst is a Research Fishery Biologist in the Fisheries Behavioral Ecology Program of the NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center. He works from the AFSC seawater laboratory in Newport, OR. He also holds a faculty position in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Oregon State University. 

Jeffrey Short is the Pacific Science Director with Oceana, an international marine conservation organization. Prior to that, he retired after a 31-year career as a research chemist at NOAA, where he worked primarily on oil pollution and other contaminant issues.  During his last two years at NOAA, Dr. Short launched a research effort aimed at determining the effects of ocean acidification on commercially important shellfish in Alaska.

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