BARCELONA EXPRESS: Surface Ocean Carbon and Physical Measurements

From July 26 to December 28, 2011, the BARCELONA EXPRESS vessel collected surface underway measurements of carbon dioxide partial pressure, salinity, and sea surface temperature across the North Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. The dataset includes four distinct cruise legs (BMBE20110726, BMBE20110809, BMBE20110927, BMBE20111119) and was gathered by NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory using a CO2 gas analyzer. It captures the air-sea difference in carbon dioxide fugacity alongside barometric pressure and other physical variables.

Use Cases

• Calculating air-sea CO2 flux based on partial pressure difference measurements.
• Analyzing spatial and temporal variability of surface ocean carbon parameters across multiple basins.
• Validating and calibrating satellite-derived sea surface temperature and salinity products.
• Studying ocean acidification trends in coastal and open ocean waters.

Strengths

• Data covers a wide geographic area spanning the North Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea.
• Includes four distinct, temporally separated cruise legs over a five-month period.
• Collected by a recognized authority (NOAA AOML) using a specific, documented instrument (Carbon dioxide gas analyzer).

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, file size, and column details are unavailable across all platforms.
• The dataset is over a decade old, limiting its use for contemporary analysis without recent companion data.
• License information is not provided, which may restrict reuse.

Provenance

Source

Rik Wanninkhof, Denis Pierrot, Kevin Sullivan of NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML).

Collection Method

Surface underway observations collected from the vessel BARCELONA EXPRESS using a Carbon dioxide (CO2) gas analyzer and other instruments.

Time Range

2011-07-26 to 2011-12-28

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:29:24.008384

Geography

Alboran Sea, Balearic (Iberian) Sea, Coastal Waters of Florida, English Channel, Gulf of Mexico, Ligurian Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean Sea - Western Basin, North Atlantic Ocean, North Sea, Strait of Gibraltar, Tyrrhenian Sea