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Research Objectives:
The Southern Ocean provides an important component of the global carbon budget. Cold surface temperatures, with consequent low vertical stability, ice formation, and high winds, produce a very active environment where the atmospheric and oceanic reservoirs readily exchange gaseous carbon. The Drake Passage is the narrowest point through which the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and its associated fronts must pass. This so-called chokepoint provides the most efficient site to measure the latitudinal gradients of gas exchange.
Working from the R/V Laurence M. Gould, researchers will use equipment designed to measure both dissolved carbon dioxide and occasional total carbon dioxide in the surface waters during transects of the Drake Passage. This work extends similar measurements made aboard R/V Nathaniel B. Palmer and complements other data collected on surface temperatures and currents. These data sets supplemented by satellite imagery will enable scientists to estimate the net production and carbon export by the biological community. The data will also provide a quantitative description of the sources of dissolved carbon dioxide variability and a calculation of carbon dioxide fluxes between the ocean and the atmosphere.
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