Dataset: Carbon System Data Inventory

Research topic: Assembly, quality control and analysis of components of the carbon dioxide system

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: 

1. 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
2. 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.