{"id":2833,"date":"2022-10-11T14:52:17","date_gmt":"2022-10-11T18:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/beaufortgyre\/?page_id=2833"},"modified":"2022-10-11T14:55:26","modified_gmt":"2022-10-11T18:55:26","slug":"dispatch-25-measuring-co2-in-the-arctic-ocean","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/beaufortgyre\/expeditions\/2022-expedition\/2022-dispatches\/dispatch-25-measuring-co2-in-the-arctic-ocean\/","title":{"rendered":"Dispatch 25: Measuring CO2 in the Arctic Ocean"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t

Dispatch 25: Measuring CO2<\/sub> in the Arctic Ocean<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\"Mike\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\tMike DeGrandpre watching the recovery of a mooring. The SAMI-CO2 is located below the yellow sphere (Photo by Mary-Louise Timmermans).\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\"The\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\tThe heart of the pCO2 underway system that is kept in the main lab onboard (Photo by Ashley Arroyo). \n\t

Ashley Arroyo<\/h3>\n

October 10, 2022<\/h3>\nDispatch 25: Measuring CO2<\/sub> in the Arctic Ocean\n

Carbon dioxide (CO2<\/sub>) is an important greenhouse gas, which traps and re-emits heat in the Earth’s atmosphere. The oceans are a significant carbon sink; the amount of CO2<\/sub> in the Earth’s atmosphere is of comparable magnitude to that absorbed by the ocean. Since colder surface waters can absorb more CO2<\/sub> than warmer waters, the Arctic Ocean plays an important role in global CO2<\/sub> uptake. Understanding how CO2<\/sub> is evolving in the Arctic Ocean is particularly relevant because of sea-ice decline; decreasing sea ice concentrations lead to the potential for increased air-sea gas exchange, which could alter carbon cycling and storage on local and global scales. For these reasons, it is very important to monitor CO2<\/sub> storage and air-sea fluxes in the Arctic Ocean.<\/p>\n

Mike DeGrandpre is a professor in the chemistry department at the University of Montana, who is aboard the Louis taking measurements of pCO2<\/sub> (the partial pressure of CO2<\/sub> in a liquid or a gas) in the surface waters of the Canada Basin. On a day-to-day basis, Mike has been using an “underway system” which takes near-continuous measurements of pCO2<\/sub> of seawater from underneath the ship at a depth of 9 meters. Seawater is brought through stainless steel tubing into the ship’s main lab where it runs through an equilibrator. Within the equilibrator, a small volume of air from the lab interacts with the seawater, causing the pCO2<\/sub> of the air to “equilibrate,”5: \u00a0or become the same as the pCO2<\/sub> in the seawater. The equilibrated air is then sent into an infrared gas analyzer, which determines the pCO2<\/sub> of the air (which is the same as the pCO2<\/sub> of the sea water). The underway system produces a continuous record of pCO2<\/sub> throughout the entire expedition. Combining this data set with other measured parameters (i.e., atmospheric pCO2<\/sub>, water temperature, sea ice concentration, wind speed, etc.), the air-sea flux of CO2<\/sub> into the Arctic Ocean can be computed.<\/p>\n

In addition to the data that are recorded through the ships underway pCO2<\/sub> system, Mike along with the science crew from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have installed Submersible Autonomous Moored Instruments (SAMI-CO2<\/sub>) on the Ice Tethered Profilers and moorings that have been deployed as a part of this year’s expedition. The SAMI-CO2<\/sub> sensors take measurements of pCO2<\/sub> at fixed depths on the instruments: the sensors are located at depths of 4 meters on the ITPs and 40 meters on the moorings. The data that will be produced from the SAMI-CO2<\/sub> sensors will be valuable in quantifying pCO2<\/sub> in Arctic Ocean surface waters to help us gain insight on carbon cycling and air-sea fluxes of CO2<\/sub> in the Arctic Ocean under a warming climate.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dispatch 25: Measuring CO2 in the Arctic Ocean Mike DeGrandpre watching the recovery of a mooring. The SAMI-CO2 is located below the yellow sphere (Photo by Mary-Louise Timmermans). The heart of the pCO2 underway system that is kept in the main lab onboard (Photo by Ashley Arroyo). Ashley Arroyo October 10, 2022 Dispatch 25: Measuring…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"parent":2598,"menu_order":25,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"tpl-sidebar.php","meta":{"advanced-sidebar-menu\/link-title":"","advanced-sidebar-menu\/exclude-page":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/beaufortgyre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2833"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/beaufortgyre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/beaufortgyre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/beaufortgyre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/beaufortgyre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2833"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/beaufortgyre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2837,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/beaufortgyre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2833\/revisions\/2837"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/beaufortgyre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/beaufortgyre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}