Dear Colleagues:

I wanted to bring to your attention a new activity, co-funded by NOAA and DOE, to undertake synthesis of the global ocean CO2 survey data. The announcement of the joint activity was published in the Federal Register, August 21, 1998 (page 44841).

An information sheet with further details is available on the internet at:

www.ogp.noaa.gov/mpe/OACES/OACES99info.html (also included in this message). Please note that while this activity is not a formal Joint Global Ocean Flux Study - Synthesis and Modeling (JGOFS-SMP) activity, it shares some common objectives. Investigators funded under the NOAA-DOE synthesis activity may wish to participate in JGOFS-SMP meetings but will need to include budgets for their travel to those meetings in their proposals if they are not JGOFS principal investigators as well.

Proposals are due by September 30, 1998. For further information please contact Lisa Dilling, NOAA Office of Global Programs (301) 427-2089 ext. 106 or dilling@ogp.noaa.gov. To obtain an application package, please contact Irma Dupree at (301) 427-2089 ext. 107 or dupree@ogp.noaa.gov.

Information sheet for joint NOAA-DOE synthesis project

One of the goals of the Global CO2 survey is to measure the inventory and uptake of anthropogenically-produced CO2 of the ocean and understand how the ocean has functioned as a sink for CO2. Over the past decade, the Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have sponsored a number of cruises in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans to measure carbon system parameters (Total CO2, pCO2, Alkalinity, and pH) as well as supporting data such as organic carbon, carbon isotopes, chlorofluorocarbons, nutrients, oxygen, primary production, etc. As data collection is now complete, these observations can be synthesized into basin-wide, and, ultimately, global scale depictions of the fate of anthropogenic carbon in the ocean, and form the basis for comparison with models of oceanic CO2 uptake.

Data synthesis proposals should be focused on the most relevant parameters needed to estimate the location and size of oceanic carbon sinks and sources and how much anthropogenic CO2 has been taken up by each ocean basin, or the global ocean as a whole. In addition, data synthesis projects aimed at designing improved strategies for monitoring ocean carbon sink behavior will be considered. All proposals should treat uncertainties associated with random and systematic error, limited sampling distribution, and assumptions about ocean behavior.

Collaborations with investigators responsible for collecting the data to be synthesized are encouraged. Investigators funded by DOE or NOAA are required to release their data to the public domain within 2 years after collection. Investigators proposing to do synthesis will not be permitted to receive funds for synthesis unless their data obligation has been completely fulfilled. Three-year proposals will be considered, with a reduction in effort in the third year as synthesis activity is completed.

For more information on data gathered by the OACES program and the status of existing data sets, please see the OACES data management web page at: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/ocd/oaces/. For information on the data from the DOE- sponsored cruises, please see the CDIAC archive at: http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/cdiac/oceans/home.html.

Lisa Dilling, NOAA