Use atmospheric conditions and water properties across two/three years in the North Pacific and North Atlantic to evaluate environmental factors that control whether this site is a source or a sink of CO2.
Identify periods of time during which the ocean is a source or a sink of CO2 or at equilibrium at this location
Evaluate the relative importance of variables that affect CO2 concentration and flux at this location
Predict the location of the mystery site by comparing to data from known regions, and justify your prediction with reference to the data
Select a parameter:
Select location:
Data Tips
When the site loads, you are able to see the full dataset of pCO2 in air and water at the mystery site, with comparisons to the Pioneer and Endurance (Oregon) sites. You can interact with the data by:
Clicking "next" to reveal additional data
Turning on and off different oceanic and atmospheric variables to compare their data to the CO2 data
Moving the red slider along the data to help you correlate events between graphs
Zooming in and out of the data to look at different timescales that interest you by changing the width of the highlighted section of the bottom graph (if loads with all the data highlighted)
Questions for Thought
Orientation Questions
What do the units on the axes mean?
What time period does this data cover?
How complete is this dataset? Are there gaps or is it relatively continuous?
Which is greater, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere or in the water? (Does the answer to this question vary?)
Which is more variable, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere or in the water?
Where does the concentration of CO2 in the water increase? Decrease?
Interpretation Questions
By examining patterns in multiple datasets for the mystery site, predict when/whether the mystery site is a CO2 source or sink
Examine temperature, salinity, wind speed, and chlorophyll concentration for the mystery site. Using what you understand about how these variables affect ocean pCO2, predict the pattern in ocean pCO2 for the final year. (not possible)
What would happen to the air-sea CO2 flux if ocean temperature were raised by 2°C? 4°C?
Compare patterns of CO2 concentration, CO2 flux, and environmental variables between all three sites. What region is the mystery site located in? What similarities between sites allowed you to identify this?
Background Information
Click on the images below to learn more about where and how the dataset above was collected.