R/V Marcus Langseth Underway pCO2 Data
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Who We Are
| Rik Wanninkhof, Ph.D.
Senior Technical Scientist
| Denis Pierrot, Ph.D.
Oceanographer
About the Marcus Langseth
The R/V Marcus Langseth is owned by Columbia University’s Lamont Dougherty Earth Observatory and is the only UNOLS vessel equipped to carry out marine multichannel seismological research. The Langseth is able to deploy multiple hydrophone arrays and linear sound source air gun arrays, which improve the quality and reliability of data acquisition, as well as enhanced general-purpose capacity, such as wireline coring, OBS deployment/recovery, and ROV operations in support of a wide range of marine science programs in locations around the world.
In August of 2023, in preparation for the the A13.5 GO-SHIP cruise in early 2024, our group installed an autonomous instrument on this vessel to measure CO2 in the surface water and the overlaying atmosphere above it. The ship had previously been outfitted with a pCO2 system designed by the late Taro Takahashi’s group at LDEO, which was later taken over by the GML group. The pCO2 system collected data from 2010 to 2013 and then again in 2017 and 2018 but had to be removed from the ship. Beyond the completion of the A13.5 cruise, the Langseth is looking into getting more involved with biogeochemical cruises where the underway pCO2 system would greatly complement the data collected.
About the Website
This web site provides access to the fugacity of CO2 (fCO2) data collected on this ship. Note, fCO2 is the partial pressure pCO2 corrected for non-ideality of the CO2 gas; they are numerically similar (fCO2 ≃ 0.995 pCO2). The processed data are organized by year and by cruise. For each cruise, the color coded fCO2 values are plotted along the ship’s cruise track on a chart. Next to each chart are links to the comma-delimited data file and the associated Readme file. To download a data file, select the year from the drop-down list box and click. Choose a chart and cruise, right-click on the link to its data file or Readme file, and select the download option. Please consult with and acknowledge the AOML Ocean Carbon Cycle group if data is used for publication or presentation (contacts in Master Readme, or Denis.Pierrot@noaa.gov).
The Master Readme provides meta data that is applicable for all data gathered from this ship. The individual Readme files next to the charts provide meta data specific to the associated cruise. The Real-Time Display link displays plots of the raw xCO2 data as a function of time and location. These plots are suitable for monitoring but are not suitable for environmental interpretation since the Real-Time data has not been processed nor quality controlled.