FOCE – Long Term In Situ Ocean Acidification Instrumentation
The goal of FOCE (Free Ocean CO2 Enrichment) technology is to provide precise control of pH within in situ experimental chambers with minimal effect on other environmental conditions, to support experiments evaluating the consequences of ocean acidification on marine organisms and communities. The chemical and physical techniques for controlling CO2 chemistry are well understood, but depend on the marine environments of interest. The technologies and application techniques used to execute FOCE required considerable time and expertise to develop. A user community has developed and is now putting FOCE technology and expertise in an open source package called xFOCE. This paper discusses the FOCE developments that have occurred, are currently operating and those planned for the future using closed loop control to adjust pH to imitate expected future ocean conditions. FOCE is a multi-disciplinary tool for Ocean Acidification (OA) studies in any marine environment. xFOCE is the open source variant intended to allow more researchers to use FOCE techniques by through the existing user community contributing expertise and technical support.