NCEI 0157356: Ocean Surface CO2 and Temperature Measurements

Surface underway measurements from the vessel New Century 2 span the Bering Sea, Caribbean Sea, Coastal Waters of Florida, Southeast Alaska and British Columbia, Columbia River estuary, Gulf of the Farallones, Monterey Bay, Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuaries, and the North Atlantic, North Pacific, and Philippine Seas from April 11, 2014, to January 12, 2015. The data include the partial pressure (or fugacity) of carbon dioxide in air and water, the air-sea difference of this variable, salinity, and sea surface temperature, collected using a Carbon dioxide (CO2) gas analyzer. These observations were collected by Shin-ichiro Nakaoka of the National Institute for Environmental Studies as part of the Volunteer Observing Ship (VOS) program across 14 distinct cruise legs.

Use Cases

• Calculating air-sea CO2 flux based on partial pressure differences.
• Analyzing spatial and temporal variability of surface ocean pCO2 across diverse marine regions.
• Correlating sea surface temperature and salinity with carbon dioxide partial pressure.
• Validating regional and global carbon cycle models with in-situ underway observations.

Strengths

• Data covers a wide geographic scope across multiple oceans and coastal sanctuaries.
• Provides a continuous, nearly nine-month time series from 14 specific cruise legs.
• Includes directly measured, co-located variables (pCO2 in air and water, SST, salinity) crucial for flux calculations.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, file size, specific column names, and license are unavailable across all sources.
• The last updated date conflicts between sources (2015-01-12 on NASA Earthdata vs. 2026-03-05 on Data.gov), creating uncertainty about data currency.
• The dataset description is repeated verbatim across platforms, suggesting limited independent annotation or documentation.

Provenance

Source

Shin-ichiro Nakaoka of the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), collected via the Volunteer Observing Ship (VOS) program.

Collection Method

Surface underway observations collected using a Carbon dioxide (CO2) gas analyzer and other instruments aboard the vessel New Century 2.

Time Range

2014-04-11 to 2015-01-12

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:16:51.129887

Geography

Bering Sea, Caribbean Sea, Coastal Waters of Florida, Coastal Waters of Southeast Alaska and British Columbia, Columbia River estuary - Washington/Oregon, Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, North Atlantic Ocean, North Pacific Ocean, Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, Philippine Sea