Building unique collaborative global marine CO2 observatories

Published 25 January 2024 Science Leave a Comment
Tags: chemistry, field, methods, review

The NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) carbon program has made sustained investments over the last two decades in equipment development, autonomous sampling, and virtual support that undergird the global carbon observing infrastructure. As a result, the program plays an integral role in supporting ocean carbon research with collaborating institutions worldwide (Sutton and Sabine, 2023, in this issue).

Here, we discuss the field support and data product strategies we developed to build a successful moored autonomous air-sea CO₂ and ocean acidification program that relies on moored buoys maintained by other collaborators. The most critical component of our program is partnering with other agencies, universities, and oceanographic institutions. Sharing resources and results allows scientists to collaborate on global climate issues at an international level. We provide instrument refurbishments, real-time (remote) troubleshooting, data handling and dissemination, and centralized coordination. Our partners provide ship and personnel-based resources for deployment/recovery of moorings as well as in-person troubleshooting. No one institution can provide all the physical support necessary for a global array of buoys, but many hands make light work when the effort is dispersed among multiple partnerships. To date, we have partnered with over 100 individuals from more than 20 US and global institutions (Figure 1) in support of nearly 50 autonomous air-sea CO₂ and ocean acidification sites since 2003.

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Musielewicz S., Osborne J., Maenner Jones S., Battisti R., Dougherty S. & Bott R., 2023. Building unique collaborative global marine CO2 observatories. Oceanography 36(2–3): 156–157. Article.

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