New dataset provides 40-year record of carbon dioxide
accumulation in the surface ocean
16th March 2012
The most comprehensive dataset of surface water
carbon dioxide measurements for the world's oceans and coastal seas
is launched today by an international team of scientists led by the
University of East Anglia.
The Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) comprises 6.3
million global observations made from research vessels, commercial
ships and moorings around the world since 1968. The dataset
documents the changes in ocean carbon similar to the Mauna Loa
record – or 'Keeling curve' - showing the rise in atmospheric
CO2 over time.
Further details will be published tomorrow in Eos - the journal
of the American Geophysical Union. The entire dataset is freely
available to scientists and members of the public via the
SOCAT website.
Net CO2 absorption by the world’s oceans is known to
benefit human-kind by reducing the concentration of this greenhouse
gas in the atmosphere, but the increase in ocean carbon also causes
ocean acidification endangering marine organisms. Knowledge of
year-to-year and decadal changes in oceanic CO2 uptake
are essential for assessing the feedbacks between climate change
and the ocean carbon cycle.
This new dataset was assembled by a team of more than 100
scientific experts from around the world, co-ordinated by
scientists from: the Bjerknes Centre for Climate
Research/University of Bergen/Uni Research, Norway; the University
of East Anglia in the UK; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), the University of Washington and the Carbon
Dioxide Information Analysis Center in the US; and the Centre
National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the International
Ocean Carbon Coordination Project (IOCCP) of the Intergovernmental
Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO in France.
Dr Dorothee Bakker, Dr Ute Schuster and Prof Andy Watson of
UEA’s School of Environmental Sciences believe the dataset will
become a cornerstone of climate change research.
Dr Bakker said: “Assembling this dataset has been a major
undertaking by sea-going marine carbon scientists from across the
world for the last four years. We believe SOCAT will become an
invaluable resource for anyone studying the ocean carbon cycle and
its influence on global temperatures.”
Dr Are Olsen, from the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research,
which physically assembled the dataset, said: “The unique aspect of
this dataset is that the observations have been combined into a
single uniform format and quality controlled. Reformatted input
data and recalculated output data are publicly available at
www.pangaea.de. The methods we have used are transparent and fully
documented.”
To make the dataset user-friendly, it is available on the web
through a sophisticated online data visualisation and manipulation
tool called the Live Access Server. The server provides interactive
maps that enable users to interrogate the data. Gridded monthly
data are also available.
Dr Christopher Sabine, of NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental
Laboratory in Seattle, Washington, added: “Our objective from the
beginning was to make these products freely available to everyone.
We are excited to see how the data will be used by professional and
amateur scientists alike.”
Dr Nicholas Metzl, of the CNRS LOCEAN/IPSL laboratory in Paris,
said: “Four years ago no global surface ocean CO2
database was publicly available. SOCAT represents a fantastic new
tool for ocean and climate scientists. Results derived from SOCAT
will be used for the next IPCC report.”
Dr Wendy Watson-Wright, assistant director general and executive
secretary of IOC, welcomed the launch of this joint initiative:
“The IOC of UNESCO is very pleased to have been able to participate
in this project. For more than 50 years we have been promoting
international co-operation in ocean science. This achievement is a
reward for all our efforts.”
The SOCAT project was initiated in 2007 by the IOC-SCOR IOCCP,
the Surface Ocean Lower Atmosphere Study (SOLAS) and the Integrated
Marine Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research project (IMBER). The
project ensures long-term access to high quality, regularly updated
surface ocean CO2 data. Potential applications include
carbon budgets, studies of seasonal, year-to-year and decadal
variation in oceanic CO2 uptake, and research into the
processes driving these. Work on the next SOCAT update has already
started.