Climate change threatens valuable marine ecosystem resources managed by sanctuaries. These learning exchanges allow sanctuaries and partner offices to learn from each other about how to incorporate information into management strategies to reduce climate risks. 

These discussions are an early step in achieving the goal of increased connectivity between NOAA Research capabilities and sanctuary climate information needs under CPO's Marine Ecosystems Risk Team (MERT) initiative.

The Initiative aims to create more cohesion across CPO’s climate and decision science programs, while strengthening partnerships inside and outside of NOAA, to ultimately help advance climate science understanding and reduce impacts in a set of four climate-related risk areas.

The partnership will help advance the Working Group’s multi-year indicator and platform development effort.