AOML's Ocean Chemistry and Ecosystems Division

About the Flora

In 2000, Royal Caribbean International started a collaboration with the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Office of Naval Research (ONR), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to have one of its ships, the Explorer of the Seas, equipped with a whole array of scientific instruments geared toward monitoring the atmosphere and the ocean.

In February of 2019, our group installed an autonomous instrument on the Celebrity Flora to measure CO₂ in the surface water, primarily in the Caribbean region. Since then, CO₂ instruments were installed on two additional cruise ships: Equinox and Allure of the Seas. In 2019, a CO₂ instrument was installed aboard the new Celebrity Cruise ship, Flora, specifically designed for tours in the Galapagos Islands. The installation was completed during the Flora's inaugural cruise across the Atlantic in June. Repeating loops around and through the Galapagos Islands started in July, 2019.

The installations continue a partnership with RSMAS, who not only provides the seawater supply infrastructure to which our systems are connected but also the computer network to allow constant access to the system computers and data. The pCO2 instrument on the Allure of the Seas takes 100 water measurements about every 4 hours. Data files are transferred to AOML every day so that the system operation can be monitored. The final data are processed after a cruise is completed and then posted to international databases and to this web site.

About this 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 on GO. 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 link in the menu bar on the left 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 Realtime 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 Realtime data has not been processed nor quality controlled.