Fiedler, Björn, Fietzek, Peer, Silva, P., Karstensen, Johannes and Körtzinger, Arne (2014) Closing gaps: Investigating the marine carbon cycle using autonomous mobile platforms. [Poster] In: Ocean Sciences Meeting 2014. , 23.-28.02.2014, Honululu, Hawaii, USA .

Abstract

Understanding the global carbon cycle and its variation requires a dense network of observations. Despite a growing data base for marine CO2 surface observations (SOCAT v2) large parts of the oceans still remain uncharted both in space and time (e.g., Southern Ocean, Arabian Sea). Moreover, the impact of mesoscale processes on the marine carbon cycle is still not well understood due to a lack of high resolution in situ observations. Recently, small-sized and submersible pCO2 and O2 sensors can be used to overcome these constraints. Thus, next to ship-based observations new platform technologies such as profiling floats or gliders come into reach. Two science showcases in the eastern tropical North Atlantic will be presented to demonstrate the potential of such autonomous observations: 1) Measurements of pCO2 and O2 performed on a profiling float were used to derive precise air-sea fluxes and production estimates which are consistent with time-series data from the Cape Verde Ocean Observatory (CVOO) and 2) a suite of synergetic autonomous O2 observations (glider, float, mooring) revealed mesoscale processes that featured unexpected open ocean subsurface hypoxia and anoxia.

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