RB-08-07
TAO-NDBC Readme File

Ship:               NOAA research vessel Ronald H. Brown
Cruise Start:       Arica, Chile, Dec. 10, 2008
Cruise End:         Rodman, Panama, Jan. 11, 2009
Chief Scientists:   William Wells
System Operator:    Jonathan Shannahoff
Expocode:           33RO20081210

Method:
The system was built by General Oceanics (GO) and is described in 
Pierrot, et al. (2009)

The three standard gases come from CMDL in Boulder and are directly
traceable to the WMO scale.

Sampling Cycle:
The system runs on an cycle during which 3 standard gases, 5 air 
samples from the bow tower and 50 surface water samples (from the 
equilibrator head space) are analyzed on the following schedule:


1. Zero and span of Licor
2. Three standard gases
3. Five air samples
4. Fifty equilibrator headspace gas samples
5. Repeat steps 2 - 4 nine more times
6. Restart from step 1

Standards:  CA6709: 284.75 ppm, CA2813: 363.24 ppm, CA9721: 432.57
ppm, CA7931: 545.88 ppm.

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 (284.75 to 
545.88 ppm) have been flagged as 3 and should be considered 
approximate (within 5 ppm).  While individual data points above 545
or below 285 may not be accurate, the general trends should be 
indicative of the seawater chemistry.
2.	Salinity readings from the ship's TSG were bad.  Readings 
from the Seabird Micro TSG connected to the analytical system were
used instead.
3.	An offset of 2.75 minutes was applied to SST data from the
ship's computer system.
4.	Due to a system malfunction no data was collected before
Dec. 19 at 19:55.
5.	The system was shut down on Dec. 22 at 13:51.  When it was
restarted at 19:54, the GPS was not working.  The system ran until
Jan. 2 at 19:47 with no data from the GPs.  It was then stopped and
restarted 5 minutes later with the GPs working.  During the period
when the GPS was down, latitude and longitude data from the ship's
computer system have been merged into the system data file.

For questions or comments contact:
Bob Castle
4301 Rickenbacker Causeway
Miami, FL 33149
305-361-4418
robert.castle@noaa.gov