Defra and the Natural Environment Research Council have announced funding for a five-year, ~£12 million study into the effects of climate change on Britain's seas. The research programme will focus on the North-East Atlantic (including European shelf and slope), Antarctic and Arctic Oceans and will aim to:

• Improve estimates of ocean CO₂ uptake and associated acidification.
• Evaluate the impact of acidification on ocean biogeochemical processes.
• Identify and improve understanding of the potential impacts and implications of acidification on key ecosystems, communities, habitats, and species, focusing on the continental shelf and slope.
• Improve the understanding of the potential population, community and ecosystem impacts and implications for commercially important species.
• Provide evidence from the paleo-record of past changes in ocean acidity and resultant changes in marine species composition and Earth System function.
• Identify and understand the indirect impacts of decreasing pH on atmospheric chemistry and the climate system.
• Improve the understanding of the cumulative or synergistic effects of Ocean Acidification on ecosystem structure and function with other global change pressures.

A call for proposals will be announced in April-May 2009. For more information see the NERC website here.