CO₂ Mooring Home
Background
Mission Statement
Projects

Mission Statement:

The primary mission of this project is to evaluate the variability in air-sea CO₂ fluxes by conducting high resolution time-series measurements of atmospheric boundary layer and surface ocean CO₂ partial pressure (pCO₂).

Although a reasonable picture of the large-scale spatial patterns in surface water pCO₂ and the air-sea CO₂ flux is starting to develop through the efforts of T. Takahashi and others (e.g. Takahashi et al., Deep-Sea Res. II, 49, 1601-1623, 2002), the temporal patterns are not well understood today. High resolution data sets, like those that can be obtained from moorings, are ideal for looking for coherent patterns in variability. Over the last 7 years, investigators at PMEL have worked very closely with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) to collect time series of pCO₂ in the Equatorial Pacific and off the California coast. We seek to build upon the existing moored observations of pCO₂ in these regions to form a network throughout the oceans to monitor global climate change.