California’s 2026 Coast and Ocean Assessment was released in March by the California Ocean Protection Council (OPC), in partnership with the California Ocean Science Trust. This coast and ocean assessment is the result of the work of more than 120 scientific experts from academic institutions, state and federal agencies including NOAA, NGOs, and Tribes.
The report features the OA (ocean acidification) indicators analysis from NOAA PMEL Carbon Program scientists Adrienne Sutton and Simone Alin (starting on page 85). NOAA OAP (Ocean Acidification Program) funded coastal time-series moorings provided the foundation for the annual “trend” analysis and indicator development, led by Adrienne Sutton. Simone Alin, a long-time co-lead of WCOA cruises, served as West Coast OA subject matter expert.
NOAA teams were key to the development of the assessment report. OAP provided long-term coastal monitoring and data management, with significant partnership and synergy from the Global Ocean Monitoring and Observing (GOMO) Program-funded observation and data analysis efforts throughout the global ocean. Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) supports lead researchers/primary investigators to engage with diverse coastal ocean interest holders, including fishery and water quality managers like the consortium of West Coast managers who requested the assessments in this report.
The 2026 report was initiated three years ago to codevelop ocean health indicators that could be used by the multiple California State agencies, non-governmental organizations, and tribal groups. These indicators provide the state with unified, comparable status and trend information, enabling better cross-organization collaboration.
This work was led by Jan Newton, director of the Washington Ocean Acidification Center at University of Washington, and was underpinned by NOAA OAP-funded coastal moorings, some in collaboration with the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS), and model-based analyses from the University of Washington (UW), and Southern California Coastal Water Research Project (SCCWRP). UW and SCCWRP scientists led the complementary model-based analyses and “status” indicator development. Newton said, “This great collaboration shows the value of long-term time series data for revealing change and also for validating the skillful models that have been developed by West Coast researchers. Bringing all this information together into a digestible format that can inform various local, state, tribal, and national decision makers is so important, and really drove our effort on this work.”
The California assessment was the first release in a broader multi-state effort led by the West Coast Ocean Alliance aiming to harmonize the efforts of state, tribal, and federal government partners. A West Coast OA status and trends web dashboard is slated for release in the coming months, which will provide annual updates for regional management of California, Oregon and Washington.