In October 2007, the Ocean Carbon Group at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) in cooperation with the Third Institute of Oceanography and the Polar Research Institute of China installed an instrument to measure CO2 levels in surface water and air on the Chinese Icebreaker, Xue Long (Snow Dragon). The Xue Long visits Antarctica each year during the austral summer and regularly visits the Arctic Ocean. This cooperative effort presents a unique opportunity to gather pCO2 data for the surface ocean and the atmosphere at high latitudes and along the long transects from China to the polar regions.


The principal investigators for the project that was sponsored by the NOAA Office of Polar Programs were:
Professor Liqi Chen: lqchen@soa.gov.cn
Professor Wei-Jun Cai: wcai@uga.edu
Dr. Rik Wanninkhof: Rik.Wanninkhof@noaa.gov

About the Website: This web site provides access to the data. Links at the left side of this page connect to the Xue Long data sets, which are organized by expedition. To download a particular file, select the expedition from the drop-down list box and click on GO. All data files for that expedition will be on one page. For each expedition, links to download the data and Readme file appear next to the cruise track map that is color coded by surface water pCO2 level. The Master Readme file contains information about the data files and details the instrumentation and the data reduction procedures used. Each cruise has an associated readme file describing the data reduction issues that occurred for that particular cruise. Other links in the menu bar on the left provide contact information and return access to the AOML GCC homepage.