| PROJECT
DESCRIPTION: |
A wealth of recent CO2 data has only
now made it possible to develop a canonical CO2 database.
A comprehensive database would be useful for a variety of purposes, e.g.,
to calculate annual oceanic carbon uptake from DCO2 maps, to
determine long-term changes in the dissolved carbon concentrations, to
predict future atmospheric CO2 concentrations through modelling
studies, and to develop a better understanding of the carbon cycle on a
basin-wide scale. This project has two major objectives:
-
assembly of a digital database containing the carbon dioxide parameters
TCO2 (sum of carbon dioxide species in seawater), partial pressure
of CO2 in the ocean (DCO2), total alkalinity (TA),
and pH. Co-collected temperature, salinity, oxygen and nutrient data
will be incorporated into the database as part of the project; and
-
development and incorporation of quality control procedures to insure the
integrity of the data.
Variations of CO2 content in surface waters are influenced by
seasonal temperature cycles (changes in the solubility of carbon dioxide),
mixing dynamics of ocean (deep water formation in high latitudes traps
atmospheric CO2 which is returned to the surface in upwelled
waters) and the biological cycles of the sea (CO2 is drawn down
in the spring and summer by phytoplankton, and regenerated in the winter).
Comparison of the results from the objectively analyzed fields showing
the spatial distribution of CO2 (objective 3) with already published
nutrient (Conkright et al., 1994a), oxygen (Levitus and Boyer, 1994a),
primary production (work in progress), salinity (Levitus et al., 1994b)
and temperature (Levitus and Boyer, 1994c) data, will increase understanding
of the processes involved in the marine biogeochemical cycle and the cycling
of carbon in the oceans.
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