NOAA Ronald H. Brown Underway Ocean Carbon and Physical Data

Multiple NCEI/NODC accessions document over a decade of surface ocean observations from the NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown, spanning 1997 to 2014. The data consistently measure the partial pressure of carbon dioxide in air and water, salinity, and sea surface temperature across global oceans, including the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, and Arctic regions. These collections support the CLIVAR Global Ocean Carbon and Repeat Hydrography Program's mission to quantify changes in ocean carbon storage and transport.

Use Cases

• Calculating air-sea CO2 flux based on the difference in partial pressure between the atmosphere and surface ocean.
• Analyzing spatial and temporal trends in surface ocean carbon parameters across major ocean basins.
• Validating satellite-derived sea surface temperature and salinity products with in-situ underway measurements.
• Studying ocean acidification by examining changes in surface water CO2 fugacity over time.
• Assessing the physical drivers of carbon variability by correlating CO2 data with concurrent salinity and temperature measurements.

Strengths

• Long-term temporal coverage, with data spanning from 1997 to 2014.
• Broad geographic coverage across the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, and Arctic Oceans, and numerous seas and marine sanctuaries.
• Consistent core measurement suite (pCO2 in air/water, salinity, SST) across multiple years, enabling time-series analysis.

Limitations

• Column names and detailed data structure are unknown across all platform entries, limiting immediate usability.
• Conflicting or missing metadata for size, row counts, and license information on all listed platforms.
• Data is split across many separate NCEI/NODC accessions, requiring users to locate and merge files for a complete view.

Provenance

Source

US DOC; NOAA; OAR; Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, primarily collected by Rik Wanninkhof and colleagues.

Collection Method

Surface underway observations collected from NOAA Ship RONALD H. BROWN using Carbon dioxide (CO2) gas analyzers, shower head chamber equilibrators, and thermosalinographs.

Time Range

1997-07-28 to 2014-11-24

Freshness

Most recent platform update was 2026-03-05 for two accessions on datagov, though the underlying data collection ends in 2014.

Geography

Global oceans including the North/South Atlantic, North/South Pacific, Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea, Bering Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea, and multiple US National Marine Sanctuaries.