Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) Project

At the “Surface Ocean CO2 Variability and Vulnerability” workshop in April 2007, co-sponsored by IOCCP, SOLAS, IMBER, and the Global Carbon Project, participants agreed to establish a standard global surface CO2 data set that would bring together, in a common format, all publicly available surface CO2 data.  This is an activity that has been called for by many international groups for many years, and has now become a priority activity for the carbon community.  This data set will serve as a foundation upon which the community will continue to build in the future, based on agreed data and metadata formats and standard 1st level quality-control procedures, building on earlier agreements established at the 2004 Tsukuba workshop on “Ocean Surface pCO2 Data Integration and Database Development”.  This data set is meant to serve a wide range of user communities and it is envisaged that, in the future, 3 distinct versions will be made available: 

• an extended 1st level quality-controlled data set made available on a rolling basis by concatenating new publicly-available data onto the existing data set using a common format and agreed 1st level QC procedures (to be determined, and not to be confused with essential primary QC procedures carried out by PIs);
• a 2nd level quality-controlled data set made available on a regular basis (to be determined) following agreed procedures (also to be determined) and regional review; and,
• a gridded “Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas” consisting of a 1° x 1° grid of monthly surface pCO2 means (including number of data points and standard deviation), with no interpolation. 

For the extended 1st level quality-controlled data set, it was agreed to build on the work started in 2001 as part of the EU ORFOIS project by Dorothee Bakker (UEA), which now continues as part of the EU CARBOOCEAN project, where Benjamin Pfeil and Are Olsen (Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research) have compiled the historical, publicly-available surface CO2 data held at CDIAC into a common format database based on the IOCCP recommended formats for metadata and data reporting. This compilation will include data from over 10 countries, producing an initial database composed of more than 1250 cruises from 1972 - 2007 with approximately 4.5 million measurements of various carbon parameters, available in a common format, extended 1st level quality-controlled data set. To date, the primary QC procedures have included correcting for missing values, correcting spatial outliers and unrealistic values in salinity, temperature at equilibration, water temperature, atmospheric pressure, pressure at equilibration, latitude and longitude by interpolation of closest neighboring stations, as well as calculation of fCO2 in the water column at SST and 100% humidity form various reported variables (xCO2, fCO2, pCO2).

The IOCCP and the SOLAS-IMBER Carbon Coordination Group established 5 regional working groups to identify data not yet included in the global standard data set by December 2007. The groups are:

North Atlantic (including Arctic) – Ute Schuster (UEA, UK)
Pacific – Richard Feely (NOAA/PMEL, USA)
Southern Ocean – Bronte Tilbrook (CSIRO, Australia)
Indian Ocean – V.V.S.S. Sarma (NIO, India)
Coastal Ocean – Arthur Chen (National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan) and Alberto Borges (U. Liege, Belgium)

For more information:
download the report of the workshop (pdf 3.3Mb);
download Report from SOCAT-1, December 2,5, Bremen (Word, 50kb)
SOCAT-2 June 16-17 2008, UNESCO, Paris.

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North Pacific

This synthesis project addresses 3 primary themes:

1. How are air-sea CO2 fluxes in the North Pacific affected by different modes of variability?
2. How and why are the North Pacific distribution patterns of carbon, nutrients and oxygen in the water column changing with time?
3. What are the requirements for detecting a climate change signal in the North Pacific carbon cycle

This synthesis activity was launched at the Understanding North Pacific Carbon-Cycle Changes: A Data Synthesis and Modeling Workshop, June 2-4, 2004

Sponsors:
NOAA/OGP’s Global Carbon Cycle Program with additional support from the North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES), The Global Carbon Project (GCP), and the University of Washington Program on Climate Changes (UWPCC).

Organizers:
Christopher L. Sabine and Richard Feely (NOAA/PMEL), Jorge Sarmiento and Robert Key (Princeton Univ.), Nicholas Gruber (UCLA), Scott Doney (WHOI)

Background:
This synthesis project was designed to bring together those researchers that have studied variability in the North Pacific to synthesize the individual experiences into a basin-scale picture of the North Pacific carbon-cycle. The synthesis, which began in early 2004, followed a 3-step approach:

1. Synthesis Preparation - Establishment of science issues and working groups; Assessment of state of knowledge and identification of relevant data sets, model results, and analysis approaches; Development of common frameworks for data and goals among all working groups; Preparation of new calculations and figures based on the agreed synthesis framework. This step is mostly accomplished through email.
2. Workshop - Presentation of assessments and new findings; outlining synthesis manuscripts; Developing collaborative follow-up activities; Identification of future research needs.
3. Collaborations, Data Synthesis Development, Publications - Finalizing synthesis papers; Synthesis data set development and publication; Continued collaborations.

The 3-step approach produces not only a data synthesis of relevant data sets, but also a scientific re-analysis of these data with a view toward the larger picture, new collaborations, and peer-reviewed literature.

For this North Pacific study, the data synthesis was further enhanced by a simultaneous examination of North Pacific variability in a variety of models. The model runs were used to predict where variability signals should be most prominent and to evaluate whether the modeled variability is consistent with the data-based signals that develop from the synthesis.

For more information about the synthesis, including protocols, publications, models, data and metadata, visit the workshop web-site at http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/NP/ .

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Atlantic Carbon Synthesis Groups

This project was initiated at the IOCCP-CarboOcean Initial Atlantic Ocean Carbon Synthesis Meeting, June 28-30 2006, Laugarvatn, Iceland. The meeting brought together 23 participants from 9 countries with expertise ranging from ship-based hydrography and carbon measurements, physical oceanography, surface pCO2 variability, CFC and tracer measurements, O2 on profiling floats, modeling, and data synthesis and management.  The specific goals of this workshop were:

• To identify the ocean carbon and related data that have been collected in the Atlantic Ocean (including Arctic and Southern Ocean sectors) that will contribute to a synthesis of ocean carbon, heat and freshwater transport and storage;

• To document the plans and interests of individual research groups for conducting scientific analysis of ocean carbon and other hydrographic data;

• To establish collaborations between groups based around key science questions; 

• To assess progress with compilations of Atlantic carbon and other hydrographic data (e.g., CARINA data) being carried out as part of CARBOOCEAN;

• To discuss comparisons of methods to estimate anthropogenic CO2.

• To make plans for an Atlantic Ocean synthesis using new integrated and multi-disciplinary approaches, outlining as far as possible joint collaborations, data sharing, data management, quality-control and co-authorship issues.

• To address issues and needs for common methodologies and approaches to be used for syntheses that will be carried out in other basins to ensure a globally-consistent approach

Workshop participants developed three coordinated synthesis groups and a common data module: 

• North Atlantic working group (lead: Are Olsen, Bjerknes Center for Climate Research, Bergen, Norway)
• Atlantic working group (lead: Toste Tanhua, IFM-GEOMAR, Kiel, Germany)
• South Atlantic / Southern Ocean (lead: Mario Hoppema, AWI, Bremerhaven, Germany)
• Data: Robert Key, Princeton University, USA

These groups identified key collaborators, refined key questions to address with the syntheses, identified data sets to be used in the syntheses, assigned responsibilities for quality control of each parameter, and discussed key synthesis papers, topics, and co-authors to be developed in the next 12-18 months. 

For more information, including data, working documents, and follow-up activities, please visit the synthesis home page at: http://www.carbon-synthesis.org/

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