Abstract
Abstract. The Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT), an activity of the international marine carbon research community, provides access to synthesis and gridded fCO2 (fugacity of carbon dioxide) products for the surface oceans. Version 2 of SOCAT is an update of the previous release (version 1) with more data (increased from 6.3 million to 10.1 million surface water fCO2 values) and extended data coverage (from 1968–2007 to 1968–2011). The quality control criteria, while identical in both versions, have been applied more strictly in version 2 than in version 1. The SOCAT website (http://www.socat.info/) has links to quality control comments, metadata, individual data set files, and synthesis and gridded data products. Interactive online tools allow visitors to explore the richness of the data. Applications of SOCAT include process studies, quantification of the ocean carbon sink and its spatial, seasonal, year-to-year and longerterm variation, as well as initialisation or validation of ocean carbon models and coupled climate-carbon models. Data coverage Repository-
Highlights
Human activity is releasing large quantities of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere
The Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) and Takahashi data sets benefit from standardisation and intercomparison of measurement and reporting protocols, as well as discussions between data providers and quality controllers on reporting standards and data quality (Dickson et al, 2007; International Ocean Carbon Coordination Project (IOCCP), 2008; SOCAT, 2011; Wanninkhof et al, 2013a)
Criteria for 2nd level quality control have been defined in a series of workshops (IOCCP, 2008, 2009, 2010; Pfeil et al, 2013)
Summary
Human activity is releasing large quantities of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. From pre-industrial times to 1994 the oceans have taken up 118 ± 19 Pg C from the atmosphere (Sabine et al, 2004) This is equivalent to roughly 50 % of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement production or 30 % of the total anthropogenic emissions, if CO2 emissions from land use change are included. The SOCAT and Takahashi data sets benefit from standardisation and intercomparison of measurement and reporting protocols, as well as discussions between data providers and quality controllers on reporting standards and data quality (Dickson et al, 2007; IOCCP, 2008; SOCAT, 2011; Wanninkhof et al, 2013a) Both data sets contribute towards more rapid availability of ocean carbon data for synthesis products and policy-related assessments. – A gridded data product of mean monthly surface water f CO2 on a 1◦ latitude by 1◦ longitude grid with minimal temporal or spatial interpolation using the 2nd level quality-controlled, global surface ocean f CO2 data set
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