Ocean pCO2 Measurements and CO2 Geological Sequestration. Ocean pCO2 data; Carbon sequestration; Air-sea CO2 flux

The Center for Environmental and Applied Fluid Mechanics (CEAFM) fosters research and teaching involving fluid mechanics by bringing together students, faculty, and researchers from the Whiting School of Engineering, the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, and the Applied Physics Laboratory. Research areas of the CEAFM faculty and students include fluid flow phenomena in engineering and science covering a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. This includes fluid flows that occur in industrial, transportation, and manufacturing applications, in ocean and coastal engineering, in the treatment of aquatic and air-borne contaminants, in planetary atmospheres and oceans, rivers, subsurface waters, and fluids deep in the earth's interior, in biological systems, and in the microscopic environments relevant to micro-fluidic engineering applications and to aquatic and atmospheric chemistry and biology.

The Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies (COLA), located in Calverton, Maryland, is a unique institution which allows earth scientists from several disciplines to work closely together on interdisciplinary research related to variability and predictability of Earth's climate on seasonal to decadal time scales. The scientific premise for research at COLA is that there is a predictable element of the Earth's current climate that makes it possible to accurately forecast climate variations. While the chaotic nature of the global atmosphere is known to impose a limit on the predictability of the state of the climate at a given instant, the hypothesis behind COLA's research suggests that there is predictability in the midst of chaos, and that accurate climate forecasts with lead times longer than the inherent limit of deterministic predictability are possible.

CMDL's mission is to observe and understand, through accurate, long-term records of atmospheric gases, aerosol particles, and solar radiation, the Earth's atmospheric system controlling climate forcing, ozone depletion and baseline air quality, in order to develop products that will advance global and regional environmental information and services.

The Climate Prediction Center's (CPC) products are operational predictions of climate variability, real-time monitoring of climate and the required data bases, and assessments of the origins of major climate anomalies. The products cover time scales from a week to seasons, extending into the future as far as technically feasible, and cover the land, the ocean, and the atmosphere, extending into the stratosphere. These climate services are available for users in government, the public and private industry, both in this country and abroad. Applications include the mitigation of weather related natural disasters and uses for social and economic good in agriculture, energy, transportation, water resources, and health. Continual product improvements are supported through diagnostic research, increasing use of models, and interactions with user groups. We serve the public by assessing and forecasting the impacts of short-term climate variability, emphasizing enhanced risks of weather-related extreme events for use in mitigating losses and maximizing economic gains.

Mauna Loa Observatory is located on the Island of Hawaii at an elevation of 3397 m on the northern flank of Mauna Loa volcano at 200 north. Established in 1957, Mauna Lao Observatory has grown to become the premier long-term atmospheric monitoring facility on earth and is the site where the ever-increasing concentrations of global atmospheric carbon dioxide were determined. The observatory consists of 10 buildings from which up to 250 different atmospheric parameters are measured by a complement of 12 NOAA/CMDL and other agency scientists and engineers.

Barrow Observatory, established in 1973, is located near sea level 8 km east of Barrow, Alaska at 71.32 degrees north. This facility is manned year around by 2 engineers/scientists who often commute to work in winter on snow machines. Due to its unique location, dedicated and highly trained staff, excellent power and communications infrastructure, the Barrow Observatory is host to numerous cooperative research projects from around the world. CMDL operates staffed atmospheric baseline observatories at Barrow, Alaska; Trinidad Head, California; Mauna Loa, Hawaii; Samoa; and the South Pole from which numerous in situ and remote atmospheric and solar measurements are conducted. The overall scientific programs and administrative functions of the four observatories are handled from Boulder with on-site station chiefs caring for day-to-day station activities. The meteorological data from each observatory is monitored, processed and put on the Internet on a daily basis by the Observatory Observations group. In addition to the baseline observatories, CMDL also has operations at numerous cooperative sites around the world.

The Samoa Observatory is located on the northeastern tip of Tutuila island, American Samoa, on a ridge overlooking the South Pacific Ocean. Established in 1974 on a 26.7 acre site, the observatory is the fourth of the CMDL Baseline Observatories. Since its construction, the Samoa Observatory has survived two major hurricanes with only minor damage. A staff of 3 operates the year around facility commuting to work. This Observatory has the distinction of obtaining 30% of its daytime power from solar panels.

The South Pole Observatory was established at the geographical south pole at 2837 m above sea level in 1957 as part of the International Geophysical Year. The National Science Foundation provides the infrastructure for the NOAA/CMDL scientific operations including a state of the art science building named the Atmospheric Research Observatory opened in 1996. Two CMDL observatory staff spend one year tours of duty at the station which includes a 9 month period of isolation and six months of darkness. The South Pole Observatory (SPO) is one of four atmospheric baseline observatories for NOAA's Climate Monitoring and Diagnositics Laboratory (CMDL). The Atmospheric Research Observatory (ARO) was built by NSF in 1997 to house current atmospheric research and replaced NOAA's Clean Air Facility in operation from 1977 to 1997. Atmospheric data has been collected from South Pole since the International Geophysical Year (IGY), 1957 - 1958.

Located on a point jutting into the ocean along the remote north coast of California, Trinidad Head is ideally suited for atmospheric measurements. Much of the time the site experiences baseline conditions, but it also allows for the monitoring of regionally influenced air, affected mainly by forested lands, but to a lesser extent, air having a small urban influence. An instrument trailer was installed in April 2002 allowing measurements of aerosols, surface ozone, radiation, and flask sampling for halocarbons and carbon cycle gases. Within a year, weekly airborne vertical profile measurements of carbon cycle gases will be collected in flasks above and upwind of Trinidad Head. CMDL's measurements will provide a continuous baseline of pollution and climate forcing agents in air entering the U.S. Further plans include installing a GCMS for measuring PAN, hydrocarbons, and certain halocarbons. Additional measurements will be included as the Observatory matures. Already, at this location, Scripps Institution of Oceanography is operating two in situ instruments, one as part of the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE), the other for measuring changes in atmospheric oxygen concentrations.

Faculty and students of Oregon State University's College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences are advancing the frontiers of knowledge of the ocean, atmosphere, and Earth system. Our success is based on an interdisciplinary approach and state-of-the-art technology and facilities. Increasingly COAS research is exploring the edge-the interfaces between ocean and atmosphere, ocean and ice, land and sea, land and air, and deep ocean and seafloor. COAS oceanographic research and facilities have achieved national and international prominence since their inception over 50 years ago. COAS is a national leader in the study of coastal zones and ocean processes, conducting and integrating field experiments, theoretical investigations, and numerical modeling and simulations to study all aspects of ocean, land, and atmosphere processes and interactions. COAS is also recognized as a leader in the study of small-scale ocean physics and mixing processes, with expertise in instrument design, field experiments, theory, and modeling.

The Community Climate System Model (CCSM) is a fully-coupled, global climate model that provides state-of-the-art computer simulations of the Earth's past, present, and future climate states. CCSM is sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Administration of the CCSM is maintained by the Climate and Global Dynamics Division (CGD) at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). CCSM is a project within the Climate & Global Dynamics Division (CGD) of the Earth and Sun Systems Laboratory (ESSL) at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). NCAR is managed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR).

The Cooperative Institute for Arctic Research (CIFAR) was established through a Memorandum of Understanding between NOAA and the University of Alaska in April 1994. It is one of thirteen national NOAA-University joint institutes; CIFAR is the only joint institute exclusively concerned with arctic research. We work closely with the NOAA Office of Arctic Research and the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL). Our partnerships with NOAA also include the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the National Ocean Service (NOS), and an emerging relationship with the National Weather Service. CIFAR is designed to be a focal point for interactions between NOAA and the arctic research community through the University of Alaska for research related to NOAA's interests, especially in the Western Arctic/Bering Sea region. This area, vital to many nations because of its fisheries, oil and gas resources and its Native communities, is also the focus of increased international attention and research. While uncertainties exist about the future, changes in the region during the past few decades have occurred at a rapid pace. Both natural environmental fluctuations and human activities have caused biological changes in the Bering Sea ecosystem. On land and in the sea, substantial climate warming has taken place and this has led to major changes in this high-latitude environment with societal impacts that will become even more pronounced if present climatic trends continue.

CICAR is a cooperative institute between NOAA and Columbia University, New York. CICAR research themes include the modeling, understanding, prediction and assessment of climate variability and change; development, collection, analysis and archiving of instrumental and paleoclimate data; and development of the application of climate variability and change prediction and assessment to provide information for decision makers and assess risk to water resources, agriculture, health, and policy. CICAR brings together scientists from NOAA Laboratories, in particular the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, New Jersey, and scientist of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, in particular the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory.

CICS aims to be a world leader in understanding and predicting climate and the co-evolution of society and the environment – integrating the physical, chemical, biological, technological, economic, social and ethical dimensions of climate change – and in training the next generations to deal with the increasing complexity of these issues. The Cooperative Institute for Climate Science (CICS) was founded in 2003 to foster research collaborations between Princeton University and the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).