The XPRIZE Foundation has announced the launch of the Wendy Schmidt Ocean Health XPRIZE, a $2 million competition designed to spur the development of accurate and affordable pH sensor technologies that can measure ocean acidification at any depth.

While ocean acidification is well documented in a few places, most current pH sensor technologies are too costly, imprecise, or unstable to provide scientists with reliable information about the changing chemistry of the planet's oceans. But with ocean acidity having reached unprecedented levels, the consequences of such acidification for global ecosystems are potentially devastating. To address the paucity of data about global ocean pH levels, the new competition will award prizes in two categories — $1 million for the teams that develop the most accurate, stable, and precise pH sensors, and $1 million for the teams that produce the least expensive, easy-to-use sensors — with first- and second-place prizes of $750,000 and $250,000 awarded in each category. Registration for the competition will open in January, with awards to be announced by July 2015.

The Wendy Schmidt Ocean Health XPRIZE is the second collaboration between the X PRIZE Foundation and Wendy Schmidt, wife of Google executive chair Eric Schmidt and president of the Schmidt Family Foundation. In 2010, Schmidt and the foundation launched the Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup XCHALLENGE, a $1.4 million competition designed to inspire innovative solutions that accelerate the pace of oil spill cleanups; that competition awarded a $1 million first-place prize in 2011.

"Ocean acidification is a serious threat we are only beginning to understand," said Schmidt. "It could have significant ecological and societal implications, changing the health of entire ecosystems, affecting the global economy and the biodiversity of the planet. As we did with the Oil Cleanup XCHALLENGE, we aim to inspire innovators around the world to get behind the creation of better, more efficient methods to monitor and measure ocean health, and ultimately to improve it."