Integrating and ground truthing the profiling float microrosette

相对于船舶而言，自主剖面浮标平台提供了海洋观测数量级改进的潜力。 研究海洋热量收支和大规模混合过程的物理海洋学家已经认识到这一事实，目前在海洋地球化学和生态模拟界的势头越来越大。 开发用于测量溶解在海洋中的二氧化碳的新化学传感器将提高我们量化全球重要生物地球化学过程的能力，例如海洋中的年度净群落生产量;此外，海洋酸化过程被认为是对海洋生态系统最重要的人为威胁之一。这项研究将开发一种名为Micro-Rosette的新技术，最终将为可集成到自主仿形浮标中的传感器提供一种新的工具。Micro-Rosette是一种专门用于仿形浮标上的设备。 该系统在预定深度处捕获亚毫升体积的海水，将样本存储一段时间，非原位（在公园深度处）分析所有离散的海水样本，将它们蒸发，然后重复该循环。 当与典型的剖析浮子循环结合时，该方法适应浮子的上升/下降/停放循环，利用多日停放循环来执行所有化学分析。 溶解无机碳的测定是通过海水样品的酸化、穿过透气膜的平衡和通过电导率测量的定量来完成的。 Micro Rosette专为剖面浮标而设计，通过利用延长的停车周期进行化学分析，这种方法包含了许多化学分析技术需要时间依赖性反应或扩散步骤的事实，导致此类分析不太适合实时测量。这项研究的应用是总溶解无机碳的测量，但微玫瑰花系统的概念非常适合于其他几种类型的分析，如氨，有机碳和铁，并可能导致一个新的家庭的轮廓浮动准备湿化学分析仪。

The autonomous profiling float platform provides the potential for orders-of-magnitude improvement in ocean observing, relative to ships. This fact has already been realized by physical oceanographers studying the ocean heat budget and large-scale mixing processes and is now gaining momentum in the ocean biogeochemistry and ecological modeling communities. The development of new chemical sensors for measurement of CO2 dissolved in the ocean will improve our ability to quantify globally significant biogeochemical processes such as annual net community production in the ocean; and, in addition, the process of ocean acidification which is considered to be one of the most significant anthropogenic threats to the marine ecosystem. This research will develop a new technology known as the Micro-Rosette which will ultimately contribute a new tool to the short list of sensors available for integration into autonomous profiling floats.The Micro-Rosette is a device intended to operate specifically on board a profiling float. The system captures sub-milliliter volumes of seawater at pre-determined depths, stores the samples for a period of time, analyzes all of the discrete seawater samples ex situ (at the park depth), ejects them, and then repeats the cycle. When combined with a typical profiling float cycle, this approach adapts to the float's ascent/decent/park cycle, taking advantage of the multi-day park cycle to perform all of the chemical analyses. Determination of dissolved inorganic carbon is accomplished through acidification of the seawater sample, equilibration across a gas-permeable membrane, and quantification via a conductivity measurement. The Micro Rosette is purposefully built for profiling floats, and by taking advantage of the extended park cycle to carry out chemical analyses, this approach embraces the fact that many chemical analysis techniques require a time-dependent reaction or diffusion step leading to response times that make such analyses poorly suited for on-the-fly measurements. The application of this research is the measurement of total dissolved inorganic carbon, but the concept of a micro-rosette system is well-suited to several other types of analyses such as ammonia, organic carbon, and iron, and may potentially lead to a new family of profiling-float-ready wet chemical analyzers.