Building resilience in the production and distribution of CO₂-in-seawater Certified Reference Materials (CRMs) continues to be an issue for the global marine carbon community because there is a single source of reference materials for total alkalinity, dissolved inorganic carbon, and pH in seawater and a calibrated HCl titrant for seawater alkalinity analysis (A. Dickson Laboratory, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, USA). On 16 September 2021, as part of the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network (GOA-ON) Week, IOCCP contributed to a dedicated session "Community Discussion around CO₂-in-seawater CRMs."

Apart from introducing the results from over 240 responses to the "CO₂-in-seawater Reference Material Community Survey" organized by the US Interagency Working Group on Ocean Acidification, the session informed and discussed about the status of CRMs and updates on resilience building globally and regionally in the US, Europe and for developing and lesser resourced laboratories. You can view the recorded webinar from the GOA-ON YoutTube Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SJ2SW54Nhc

Moreover, we recommend reading a related article published on 29 September in Science News: "The world’s only source of critical seawater samples could dry up." You can access it from here: https://www.science.org/content/article/world-s-only-source-critical-seawater-samples-could-dry