After Dark: Sea Life

Beneath the San Francisco Bay lies an incredible diversity of life that’s connected to all of the world’s waterways. This means that we can tell a lot about the ocean’s health by examining what we see, sense, and hear locally - and we have just the instrument to give us some clues. Join marine scientists, technicians, and educators as they pull a one-ton carbon dioxide (CO2) buoy out of the water and explore its scientific instruments and the organisms that have colonized it. On loan to us from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the CO2 buoy has been anchored between Piers 15 and 17 since April 2013, collecting data on water temperature, salinity, and CO2 levels in the atmosphere and the Bay. Every year, we pull it out of the water to calibrate and replace the sensors and to clean off corrosion and marine organisms.