Andrew Manning (UEA)
Continuous, high precision measurements of atmospheric oxygen (O2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) are made from a Hamburg Süd container ship that travels continuously between Europe and South America. Air is sampled from the roof of the bridge, and dried before being measured. The ship visits the UK once every 8 weeks, allowing scientists from UEA on the Norwich Research Park to carry out maintenance on the equipment. The science goals of this project are to: (a) separate out signals from different atmosphere-ocean exchanges of CO2 and O2, such as those caused by marine phytoplankton or ocean currents, (b) examine northern to southern hemisphere changes in atmospheric O2 and CO2, to investigate how much gas is being emitted from the Atlantic Ocean in equatorial regions, (c) detect changes in the long-term storage of carbon in the Atlantic Ocean region.