RAPID: Exploring the high-frequency variability of air-sea CO2 fluxes in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific from an ecotourism ship

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This award will support the installation of a sensor on an ecotourism ship to continuously measure surface water carbon dioxide concentrations while the ship is underway among the Galapagos islands. Ecotourism ships are conducting transects on an almost weekly basis in critical regions of the world’s oceans, such as the Southern Ocean, the Arctic, and the Equatorial Pacific, far beyond cost-effective reach of oceanographic research vessels. The long-term goal is for the current proposed work to serve as a pilot or proof-of-concept study, and to expand the deployment of automated underway sensors and scientific equipment on other ships such as those of the Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic fleet (and other ecotourism companies) in other climate-important regions, including the Arctic and Antarctica. In addition to collecting high-quality data, the proposed work will educate ship guests on the central role of oceans in global climate and stimulate their interest in hands-on citizen science. The specific goals of this project are to complete installation of a General Oceanics pCO2 sensor on the Galapagos ecotourism ship of Lindblad Expeditions and to initiate a time series of high resolution, high frequency observations. The overarching hypothesis guiding this work is that the current sampling program in this hotspot of air-sea CO2 flux leads to large uncertainties in estimates of the annual global carbon CO2 uptake by the ocean. A corollary hypothesis is that pCO2 measured within the 3x3 degree Galapagos Archipelago reflects broader-scale patterns in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific (EEP), controlled by highly dynamic and highly variable currents, upwelling, and biologic productivity. The investigators will utilize statistical modelling and machine learning techniques to tie the Galapagos observations to those from less frequent shipboard observations and to the MAPCO2 TAO moorings in the EEP some 20 degrees farther west. Continuous, multi-year, high-resolution study will greatly improve estimates of the absolute value and the interannual variability of the EEP and global air-sea CO2 flux. Data will be submitted to the Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) observational dataset for inclusion in their annual air-sea CO2 flux budgets and incorporation into the Global Carbon Project.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.