Partial pressure of carbon dioxide, temperature, salinity and other variables collected from the coastal surface underway observations from NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow in the North Atlantic Ocean, US North-East coast and Gulf of Mexico in 2020 (NCEI Accession 0210576)

Surface underway chemical, meteorological, and physical data were collected from NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow in the North Atlantic Ocean, US North-East coast, and Gulf of Mexico. The dataset includes measurements of carbon dioxide mole fraction, sea surface temperature, salinity, and fugacity from March to November 2020. It was collected by NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) using a carbon dioxide gas analyzer and equilibrator.

Use Cases

• Analyze the difference between sea water fugacity of CO2 and interpolated air fCO2 to quantify ocean carbon uptake.
• Model sea surface temperature and salinity relationships with the fugacity of CO2 in sea water.
• Correlate barometric pressure corrected to sea level with mole fraction of CO2 in dry outside air.
• Track spatial and temporal trends of equilibrator headspace CO2 mole fraction along the US North-East coast.

Strengths

• Data collection spans an 8-month period from 2020-03-02 to 2020-11-06.
• Includes multiple directly measured variables like CO2 mole fraction, SST, salinity, and barometric pressure.
• Collected via established instruments (carbon dioxide gas analyzer, shower head chamber equilibrator) on a NOAA research vessel.

Limitations

• Sample size and spatial resolution are unknown, potentially limiting statistical power.
• Limited to a single year (2020) and specific ship track, reducing generalizability.
• Data quality flags, uncertainty estimates, and preprocessing steps are not described.

Provenance

Source

NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) Ocean Carbon Group, accessed via NASA Earthdata (NCEI Accession 0210576).

Collection Method

Surface underway observations collected autonomously from NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow using a carbon dioxide gas analyzer and shower head chamber equilibrator.

Time Range

2020-03-02 to 2020-11-06

Freshness

Data is from 2020, with no stated update frequency.

Geography

North Atlantic Ocean, US North-East coast, and Gulf of Mexico.