PACIFICA Project: Ocean Carbon and Chemistry Measurements from the Pacific Ocean, 2008

Discrete water sample and profile data collected from the KEIFU MARU research vessel in the North Pacific Ocean, Philippine Sea, and South Pacific Ocean during January and February 2008. The dataset includes measurements for dissolved inorganic carbon, alkalinity, pH, nutrients, chlorofluorocarbons, and other physical and chemical parameters. Data were collected by Kenzou Isa of Kobe Marine Observatory and Masao Ishii of Meteorological Research Institute as part of the PACIFICA international ocean carbon synthesis project.

Use Cases

• Modeling ocean acidification trends based on pH and alkalinity measurements.
• Studying marine carbon cycling using dissolved inorganic and organic carbon data.
• Analyzing nutrient distributions and their relation to biological productivity based on nitrate, phosphate, and silicate concentrations.
• Investigating ocean ventilation and water mass age using Chlorofluorocarbon (CFC-11, CFC-12) tracers.
• Calibrating biogeochemical models with in-situ profile data for temperature, salinity, and oxygen.

Strengths

• Includes a wide range of co-located chemical, biological, and physical parameters (e.g., DIC, nutrients, CFCs, chlorophyll).
• Data collected during a defined research cruise (PACIFICA_49FA20080117) with documented principal investigators and institutions.
• Covers multiple ocean basins (North Pacific, Philippine Sea, South Pacific) within a focused time period (2008-01-17 to 2008-02-28).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale modeling.
• Data may reflect geographic and temporal bias inherent to a single research cruise.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Data collected from discrete sample and profile observations using CTD, Coulometer, and bottle instruments.

Time Range

2008-01-17 to 2008-02-28

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-06 00:18:01.338984; freshness should be verified.

Geography

North Pacific Ocean, Philippine Sea, South Pacific Ocean