RB-04-01 NTAS Mooring 2004 Cruise Readme File Ship: NOAA research vessel Ronald H. Brown Cruise Start: Charleston, SC, Feb. 12, 2004 Cruise End: Bridgetown, Barbados, Feb. 25, 2004 Chief Scientist: Al Plueddemann System Operator: Jonathan Shannahoff Expocode: 33RO20040212 Method: Infrared absorption of dried gas. For details of the system see: Measurement of fugacity of Carbon Dioxide in surface water and air using continuous sampling methods. Wanninkhof and Thoning, 1993 in Marine Chemistry 44, 189-205, And: Feely, R.A., R. Wanninkhof, H.B. Milburn, C.E. Cosca, M. Stapp, and P.P. Murphy, A new automated underway system for making high precision pCO2 measurements onboard research ships, Analytica Chim. Acta, 377, 185-191, 1998. The three standard gases come from CMDL in Boulder and are directly traceable to the WMO scale. Sampling Cycle: The system runs on an hourly cycle during which 3 standard gases, 3 air samples from the bow tower and 8 surface water samples (from the equilibrator head space) are analyzed on the following schedule: Mins. after hour Sample 4 Low Standard 8 Mid Standard 12 High Standard 16.5 Water 21 Water 25.5 Water 30 Water 34 Air 38 Air 42 Air 46.5 Water 51 Water 55.5 Water 60 Water Units: All xCO2 values are reported in parts per million (ppm) and fCO2 values are reported in microatmospheres (uatm) assuming 100 % humidity at the equilibrator temperature. Notes: 1. Any values outside the range of the standards (296.73, 357.18, & 423.28 ppm) should be considered approximate (within 5 ppm). While individual data points above 423 or below 296 may not be accurate, the general trends should be indicative of the seawater chemistry. 2. The first 15 hours of data was removed (given a QC flag of 4) due to instability of the voltage response of the standard gases. 3. At the beginning of the 2004 field season, two mistakes were made in setting up the system. The first error was in the plumbing of the equilibrator and may result in slight inaccuracies in the water xCO2 values and some additional variance in the values. The increased variance should be less than 2 ppm and probably less than 1 ppm. The second error was in plumbing the water flow meter backwards and resulted in flow values of approximately 3.5 liters per minute in the data file. I believe that the true flow was in the normal range of approximately 11 liters per minute. This problem should have no effect on xCO2 values. Both of these problems were corrected after the fourth cruise (RB0404). For questions or comments contact: Bob Castle 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Miami, FL 33149 305-361-4418 robert.castle@noaa.gov