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NERC Biogeochemical Ocean Flux Study (BOFS) North Atlantic Data Set (1989-1991)

The aim of the BOFS Community Research Project was to study the role of oceans in the global cycling of carbon. It ran from March 1987 to March 1992. Fieldwork was undertaken in 1989, 1990 and 1991. A diverse data set has been assembled comprising data from 3 cruises in 1989, 6 cruises in 1990 and 2 cruises in 1991. Five of the 1990 cruises comprised a 2 ship lagrangian experiment at 48.5 - 50deg N, 17 - 19deg W. Data types include background physical oceanographic data and a wide range of biological and chemical parameters. The data were collected at 357 sites in the NE Atlantic, 308 of which are from cruises centring on 20deg W, 47 to 60deg N, 16 from the Cape Verde Islands and 33 in a coccolithophore bloom just south of Iceland. The data are split into (i) underway (SeaSoar, ADCP, meteorology and parameters sampled from the ship's pumped water supply) of which there are 793430 records at 30 second intervals from 11 cruises and (ii) discrete sampling (CTD casts, bottle samples, net hauls, stand alone pump (SAP) and sediment trap deployments, cores, productivity incubations, XBT casts) of which there are 2215 deployments. The underway data are stored as time series (30 second sampling interval) for each cruise merged with the navigation data. The data are fully quality controlled. Checks were made for instrument malfunction, fouling, constant values, spikes, spurious values, calibration errors and baseline corrections. The discrete data are stored in a relational database (Oracle RDBMS), mainly as vertical profiles and are uniquely identified by a combination of deployment number and depth. The data were collected and supplied by UK participants in the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS). BODC had responsibility for calibrating, processing, quality controlling and documenting the data and assembling the final data set.

Dataset details

Source

British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC)

Parameters

EARTH SCIENCE Temperature of the water column, Salinity of the water column, Chlorophyll pigment concentrations in the water column, Partial pressure (pCO2) and fugacity (fCO2) of carbon dioxide in the water column, Total dissolved inorganic carbon (TCO2) concentration in the water column, Alkalinity, acidity and pH of the water column, Dissolved organic carbon concentration in the water column, Particulate total and organic carbon concentrations in the water column, Particulate total and organic nitrogen concentrations in the water column, Transmittance and attenuance of the water column, Bathymetry and Elevation, Visible waveband radiance and irradiance measurements in the water column, Solar Radiation, Uptake of 'other' nutrients in the water column, Dissolved oxygen parameters in the water column, Wind speed and direction, Air pressure, Air temperature, Urea concentration parameters in the water column, Long-wave radiation, Particulate inorganic carbon concentrations in the water column, Phaeopigment concentrations in the water column, Primary production in the water column, Bacterial production in the water column, Bacteria non taxonomy-related abundance per unit volume of the water column, Phytoplankton taxonomy-related abundance per unit volume of the water column, Zooplankton defecation rates in the water column, Zooplankton feeding, Zooplankton non taxonomy-related biomass expressed as carbon per unit volume of the water column, Carotenoid pigment concentrations in the water column, Lipid (fatty acids, sterols or isoprenoid compounds) concentrations in the water column, Organosulphur species concentration parameters in the water column, Primary production in the water column, Phycobolin pigment concentrations in the water column, Stable isotope enrichment in the water column, Radioactivity in the water column, Sediment water content, porosity and surface area, Sediment density, Radioactivity in sediment, Sedimentation flux quantification in the water column, Carbon concentrations in sediment, Nitrogen concentrations in sediment, Dissolved oxygen concentration parameters in sediment pore waters

Sensors

CTD, SeaSoar, thermosalinographs, transmissometers, fluorometers, oxygen probes, potentiometers, coulometers, photometers, autoanalysers, CHN analysers, spectrophotometers, HPLC, gas chromatographs, microscopes, automated flow cytometry, scintillation counters, mass spectrometers, pH meters, salinometers, flame ionisation detectors, gamma ray detectors, shipborne ADCP, flame photometric detection, DOC analysers, XBTs

Temporal coverage

1989-01-01 — 1991-12-31

Spatial coverage

60.0
-22.0 -18.0
47.0

Administration

Data curator

British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC)
BODC Enquiries Officer:
email:enquiries@bodc.ac.uk
Phone:+44 (0) 151 795 4884, Fax:+44 (0) 151 795 4912
6 Brownlow Street
Liverpool
Merseyside
L3 5DA
United Kingdom

BODC Enquiries Officer

British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC)
email:enquiries@bodc.ac.uk
Phone:+44 (0) 151 795 4884, Fax:+44 (0) 151 795 4912
6 Brownlow Street
Liverpool
Merseyside
L3 5DA
United Kingdom

Status

This BODC DIF record was parsed from an HTML record (supplied by BODC) by the NERC Earth Observation Data Centre on 07/04/2006. Manually edited by RKL 09/02/2007. Manually edited by BEUS 09/02/2007

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