Ocean carbon observations

This page is intended for everyone interested in ocean carbon observations. Follow the links below to access the Surface Ocean Carbon portal and the Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas.

 

This website provides a place for the surface ocean pCO2 observing community to exchange technical information on their installations in order to operate more efficiently and to avoid data gaps. It can be used by researchers, PhD students and technicians. text: O. Legge, UEA. image: B. Pfeil, UiB

The Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) is a synthesis effort by marine carbon scientists globally. It creates access to surface water fugacity of carbon dioxide (fCO2) by regular releases of synthesis and gridded fCO2 products for the global oceans and coastal seas (Bakker et al., 2012; Pfeil et al., 2013; Sabine et al., 2013). SOCAT version 2, public since June 2013, contains 10.1 million surface water fCO2 data from 2660 cruises between 1968 and 2011 (Bakker et al., 2014). The SOCAT website provides access to the SOCAT products and tools. The user can interrogate the data via the interactive Cruise Data Viewer and Gridded Data Viewer. SOCAT products are available for download and via Ocean Data View. SOCAT applications include quantification of the ocean carbon sink, including its seasonal, year-to-year and longer term variation, process studies and initialisation and validation fields for ocean carbon cycle models (Bakker et al., 2014). SOCAT users are kindly requested to cite appropriate SOCAT publications. Marine carbon data can be submitted to the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) at all times. Data submitted by December 2013 will be considered for inclusion in SOCAT version 3. SOCAT is promoted by the International Ocean Carbon Coordination Project (IOCCP), the Surface Ocean Lower Atmosphere Study (SOLAS), and the Integrated Marine Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research (IMBER) program. Support for SOCAT has been received from a number of academic and research institutions and funding agencies globally (Bakker et al., 2014). text: D. Bakker, UEA, September 2013. image: SOCAT website

Carbochange
Geophysical Institute and Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research
University of Bergen
E-mail: carbomaster@uib.no