FYI
Paris/ Norwich/ Seattle/ Bergen/ Oak Ridge/ Miami, 7 October 2011
Dear Colleagues,
The Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) was initiated by the IOC-SCOR International Ocean Carbon Coordination Project, SOLAS and IMBER in April 2007 (IOCCP, 2007). The first public release of SOCAT (version 1.5) on 14 September 2011 and plans for regular (annual to bi-annual), future releases are the result of this vision (http://www.socat.info/).  SOCAT version 1.5 has 6.3 million surface water CO2 measurements from 1851 voyages in the global oceans, including the Arctic Ocean and coastal seas, between 1968 and 2007. The surface water fCO2 (fugacity of carbon dioxide) data in SOCAT have been put in a uniform format and recalculated using transparent and fully documented methods (Pfeil et al., 2011). In addition, a mean monthly fCO2 atlas has been constructed from this data set (Sabine et al., 2011). Powerful, interactive viewers of the SOCAT data and data products are available via http://www.socat.info/.
An ambitious time table for SOCAT version 2 has now been set with data submission until 31 December 2011, SOCAT quality control by the regional groups from June to September 2012 and a tentative date for the public release in late 2012. We kindly ask colleagues to submit their surface water fCO2 data before 31 December 2011 via the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/oceans/submit.html). In particular, we target all coastal and open ocean data not already in SOCAT v1.5 and collected before 2011. More recent data are most welcome.
It would be highly appreciated, if colleagues report data in the format recommended by the marine CO2 community (IOCCP, 2004; http://cdiac.ornl.gov/oceans/submit.html). Other data formats are also accepted, as long as the data are well documented. Data submissions should include surface water CO2 data, supporting data (equilibrator temperature and pressure, in situ temperature and salinity, etc.), as well as full meta-data documentation of how the measurements were made. An indication is necessary on whether these data are now publicly available or whether they should be protected until the public release of SOCAT version 2.
For future SOCAT releases prompt data submission is essential and we kindly invite data PIs to continuously submit their data, as they become available. In addition, we welcome observational and modeling colleagues in all career stages to join the SOCAT effort, e.g. by participating in SOCAT quality control or in automating SOCAT. Your skills and expertise will be most appreciated! Contact us at submit@socat.info for questions and feedback. We hope that you will (continue to) participate in regular SOCAT releases for the benefit the international ocean and global carbon communities.
With Kind Regards,
The SOCAT Global Group
References
IOCCP, 2004. Ocean Surface pCO2 Data Integration and Database Development Workshop. National Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba, Japan, 14-17 January 2004. IOCCP Report 2. http://www.ioccp.org/FinalRpts/IOCCP_WS2Summary.pdf.
IOCCP, 2007. Surface Ocean CO2 Variability and Vulnerabilities Workshop. UNESCO, Paris, France, 11-14 April 2007. IOCCP Report 7. http://www.ioccp.org/FinalRpts/SOCOVVreport_final.pdf.
Pfeil, B., A. Olsen, D.C.E. Bakker, et al. (2011) A uniform, quality controlled, Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT). Earth System Science Data (in preparation).
Sabine, C. et al. (2011) Gridding of the Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT). Earth System Science Data (in preparation).