Consistency and synthesis of Pacific Ocean CO2 survey data

Abstract

Between 1991 and 1999, carbon measurements were made on twenty-five WOCE/JGOFS/OACES cruises in the Pacific Ocean. Investigators from 15 different laboratories and four countries analyzed at least two of the four measurable ocean carbon parameters (DIC, TAlk, fCO(2), and pH) on almost all cruises. The goal of this work is to assess the quality of the Pacific carbon survey data and to make recommendations for generating a unified data set that is consistent between cruises. Several different lines of evidence were used to examine the consistency, including comparison of calibration techniques, results from certified reference material analyses, precision of at-sea replicate analyses, agreement between shipboard analyses and replicate shore based analyses, comparison of deep water values at locations where two or more cruises overlapped or crossed, consistency with other hydrographic parameters, and internal consistency with multiple carbon parameter measurements. With the adjustments proposed here, the data can be combined to generate a Pacific Ocean data set., with over 36,000 unique sample locations analyzed for at least two carbon parameters in most cases. The best data coverage was for DIC, which has an estimated overall accuracy of similar to3 mu mol kg(-1). TAlk, the second most common carbon parameter analyzed, had an estimated overall accuracy of similar to 5 mu mol kg(-1). To obtain additional details on this study, including detailed crossover plots and information on the availability of the compiled, adjusted data set, visit the Global Data Analysis Project web site at: http://cdiac.esd.oml.gov/oceans/glodap. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.