This activity is under construction!

Your Objective

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.

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Download this Dataset

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:

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.

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Dataset Information

TBD

Activity Citation: Pierrehumbert, N., Reed, R., Rhew, R., & Lichtenwalner, C. S. (2019). CO2 Exchange Between Air and Sea. OOI Data Labs Collection.