Synthesis and Quality Control of Arctic and Nordic Sea T/S Observations for the CASAMS Database

Alison Macdonald, Physical Oceanography

OCCI Funded Project: 2007

Abstract

The goal of the proposed work is to quality control the Arctic and northern North Atlantic temperature and salinity observations which are currently being assembled as part of a larger international collaborative synthesis.The data being compiled are relevant to the study of the ocean carbon system, in particular, as it pertains to the quantification of decadal to centennial large-scale inventory changes.The temperature and salinity quality control will be performed at WHO1 in an international collaboration with members of the CASAMS (CArbon data Synthesis, Arctic Mediterranean Seas) working group. CASAMS is one of three groups (the other two focused on the Atlantic and the Southern Ocean) working to combine carbon related observations which were not possible to include in the Global Ocean Data Analysis Project synthesis. The Global Ocean Data Analysis Project included only observations made between 1990 & 1998 and to the south of 60°N, and was not able to obtain permission to include many of the observations which are available for the present effort.Working members of CASAMS, will have access to the entire Arctic/Subarctic database, as well as the data compiled by the other two working groups. Therefore, the intention is that the work proposed here will lead to at least two further studies: the first would extend the PI'S current, NOAA and NSF funded investigation into the oceanic transport and divergence (source and sinks) of dissolved inorganic carbon and anthropogenic carbon in the Atlantic Basin further north across the Arctic region to connect with the Pacific; the second would be to investigate possible changes in the advection and source/sink status of carbon in the Greenland/Iceland/Norwegian Seas and North Atlantic Ocean through the study of repeat transect data. The proposed effort will allow us to strengthen recently formed collaborative ties to the European community investigating carbon and carbon change in the Arctic and Subarctic as we provide the predominantly biogeochemically oriented CASAMS group with a physical oceanographer's perspective.