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The Southern Ocean is among the largest contemporary sinks of atmospheric carbon dioxide on our planet; however, remoteness, harsh weather and other circumstances have led to an undersampling of the ocean basin, compared with its northern hemispheric counterparts. While novel data interpolation methods can in part compensate for such data sparsity, recent studies raised awareness that we have hit a wall of unavoidable uncertainties in air–sea CO 2 flux reconstructions. Here, we present results from autonomous observing campaigns using a novel platform to observe remote ocean regions: sailboats. Sailboats are at present a free of charge environmentally friendly platform that recurrently pass remote ocean regions during round-the-globe racing events. During the past 5 years, we collected > 350 000 measurements of the sea surface partial pressure of CO 2 (p CO 2 ) around the globe including the Southern Ocean throughout an Antarctic circumnavigation during the Vendée Globe racing event. Our analysis demonstrates that the sailboat tracks pass regions where large uncertainty in the air–sea CO 2 flux reconstruction prevails, with regional oversaturation or undersaturation of the sea surface p CO 2 . Sailboat races provide an independent cross-calibration platform for autonomous measurement devices, such as Argo floats, ultimately strengthening the entire Southern Ocean observing system. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Heat and carbon uptake in the Southern Ocean: the state of the art and future priorities’.

We evaluate the decadal evolution of ventilation and anthropogenic carbon (C-ant) in the Nordic Seas between 1982 and the 2010s. Ventilation changes on decadal timescale are identified by evaluating decadal changes in mean ages and apparent oxygen utilization in each of the four main basins of the Nordic Seas (the Greenland and Iceland Seas, and the Norwegian and Lofoten Basins). The ages are derived from the transient time distribution approach, based on the transient tracers chlorofluorocarbon-12 (CFC-12) and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). The different decades show different phases in ventilation, with the 2000s being overall better ventilated than the 1990s in all basins. For the Greenland Sea, we also show that the 2010s are better ventilated than the 2000s, with a clear shift in hydrographic properties. The evolution of concentrations and inventory of C-ant is linked to the ventilation state. The deep waters get progressively older over the analyzed period, which is connected to the increased fraction of deep water from the Arctic Ocean.Plain Language Summary The ocean region between Greenland, Iceland, and Norway, called the Nordic Seas, is a main site of deep-water formation. This process produces dense waters and brings surface waters to larger depths, thereby ventilating the water below. This transports, among other things, man-made CO2 (anthropogenic carbon; C-ant) and oxygen from the atmosphere into the interior ocean, thereby reducing the amount of CO2 stored in the atmosphere. This study investigates how the ventilation has changed in the Nordic Seas from 1982 to the 2010s. We find that the ventilation has changed with time, from a rather well-ventilated state in 1982, to a reduced ventilation in the 1990s, and then a restrengthened ventilation from the 2000s.

The oceanic sink for anthropogenic CO2 (Cant) that humans have emitted into the atmosphere has been pivotal for limiting global warming. The transport of Cant from the surface into the ocean interior, where most of it is accumulating, is the rate limiting step for this uptake. Yet multi-decadal trends in the ocean interior storage of Cant have not been assessed at global scale. We determined such trends by applying the eMLR(C*) regression method to ocean interior observations collected between 1989 and 2020, and found that the global ocean storage of Cant grew by 29 ± 3 Pg C dec-1 and 27 ± 3 Pg C dec-1 (±1σ) from 1994 to 2004 and 2004 to 2014, respectively. Although the two growth rates are not significantly different, they imply a reduction of the oceanic uptake fraction of the anthropogenic emissions from 36 ± 4 % to 27 ± 3 % during the respective decades. We attribute this reduction to a decrease of the ocean buffer capacity and changes in ocean circulation. In the Atlantic Ocean, the maximum storage rate shifted from the Northern to the Southern Hemisphere, plausibly caused by a weaker formation rate of North Atlantic Deep Waters and an intensified ventilation of mode and intermediate waters in the Southern Hemisphere. Between 1994 and 2004, the oceanic Cant accumulation exceeded the net air-sea flux by 8 ± 4 Pg C dec-1, suggesting a loss of natural carbon from the ocean during this decade. Our results reveal a substantial vulnerability of the ocean carbon sink.

25 pages, 10 figures, 7 tables.-- This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, The Global Ocean Data Analysis Project (GLODAP) is a synthesis effort providing regular compilations of surface-to-bottom ocean biogeochemical bottle data, with an emphasis on seawater inorganic carbon chemistry and related variables determined through chemical analysis of seawater samples. GLODAPv2.2021 is an update of the previous version, GLODAPv2.2020 (Olsen et al., 2020). The major changes are as follows: data from 43 new cruises were added, data coverage was extended until 2020, all data with missing temperatures were removed, and a digital object identifier (DOI) was included for each cruise in the product files. In addition, a number of minor corrections to GLODAPv2.2020 data were performed. GLODAPv2.2021 includes measurements from more than 1.3 million water samples from the global oceans collected on 989 cruises. The data for the 12 GLODAP core variables (salinity, oxygen, nitrate, silicate, phosphate, dissolved inorganic carbon, total alkalinity, pH, CFC-11, CFC-12, CFC-113, and CCl4) have undergone extensive quality control with a focus on systematic evaluation of bias. The data are available in two formats: (i) as submitted by the data originator but updated to World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) exchange format and (ii) as a merged data product with adjustments applied to minimize bias. For this annual update, adjustments for the 43 new cruises were derived by comparing those data with the data from the 946 quality controlled cruises in the GLODAPv2.2020 data product using crossover analysis. Comparisons to estimates of nutrients and ocean CO2 chemistry based on empirical algorithms provided additional context for adjustment decisions in this version. The adjustments are intended to remove potential biases from errors related to measurement, calibration, and data handling practices without removing known or likely time trends or variations in the variables evaluated. The compiled and adjusted data product is believed to be consistent with to better than 0.005 in salinity, 1% in oxygen, 2% in nitrate, 2% in silicate, 2% in phosphate, 4 μmolkg-1 in dissolved inorganic carbon, 4 μmolkg-1 in total alkalinity, 0.01–0.02 in pH (depending on region), and 5% in the halogenated transient tracers. The other variables included in the compilation, such as isotopic tracers and discrete CO2 fugacity (fCO2), were not subjected to bias comparison or adjustments., The original data, their documentation, and DOI codes are available at the Ocean Carbon Data System of NOAA NCEI (https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/ocean-carbon-data-system/oceans/GLODAPv2_2021/, last access: 7 July 2021). This site also provides access to the merged data product, which is provided as a single global file and as four regional ones – the Arctic, Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans – under https://doi.org/10.25921/ttgq-n825 (Lauvset et al., 2021). These bias-adjusted product files also include significant ancillary and approximated data and can be accessed via https://www.glodap.info (last access: 29 June 2021). These were obtained by interpolation of, or calculation from, measured data. This living data update documents the GLODAPv2.2021 methods and provides a broad overview of the secondary quality control procedures and results, This research has been supported by EU Horizon 2020 through the EuroSea action (grant no. 862626), internal strategic funding from NORCE Climate, Prociencia/UERJ (grant 2019–2021), IEO RADIALES and RADPROF projects, the UK Climate Linked Atlantic Sector Science (CLASS) NERC National Capability Long-term Single Centre Science Programme(grant no. NE/R015953/1), the BOCATS2 (PID2019-104279GBC21) project funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and contributing toWATER:iOS CSIC PTI, the NOAA Global Observations and Monitoring Division (fund reference 100007298), the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research of NOAA Global Observations and Monitoring Division (fund reference 100007298), the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research of NOAA, the BONUS INTEGRAL project (grant no. 03F0773A), the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership and the Integrated Marine Observing System, EU Horizon 2020 action SO-CHIC (grant no. 821001), and the Initiative and Networking Fund of the Helmholtz Association through the project “Digital Earth” (grant no. ZT-0025)

Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and their redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere in a changing climate is critical to better understand the global carbon cycle, support the development of climate policies, and project future climate change. Here we describe and synthesise data sets and methodology to quantify the five major components of the global carbon budget and their uncertainties. Fossil CO2 emissions (EFOS) are based on energy statistics and cement production data, while emissions from land-use change (ELUC), mainly deforestation, are based on land-use and land-use change data and bookkeeping models. Atmospheric CO2 concentration is measured directly, and its growth rate (GATM) is computed from the annual changes in concentration. The ocean CO2 sink (SOCEAN) is estimated with global ocean biogeochemistry models and observation-based data-products. The terrestrial CO2 sink (SLAND) is estimated with dynamic global vegetation models. The resulting carbon budget imbalance (BIM), the difference between the estimated total emissions and the estimated changes in the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere, is a measure of imperfect data and understanding of the contemporary carbon cycle. All uncertainties are reported as ±1σ. For the year 2021, EFOS increased by 5.1 % relative to 2020, with fossil emissions at 10.1 ± 0.5 GtC yr-1 (9.9 ± 0.5 GtC yr-1 when the cement carbonation sink is included), ELUC was 1.1 ± 0.7 GtC yr-1, for a total anthropogenic CO2 emission of 11.1 ± 0.8 GtC yr-1 (40.8 ± 2.9 GtCO2). Also, for 2021, GATM was 5.2 ± 0.2 GtC yr-1 (2.5 ± 0.1 ppm yr-1), SOCEAN was 2.9 ± 0.4 GtC yr-1 and SLAND was 3.5 ± 0.9 GtC yr-1, with a BIM of -0.6 GtC yr-1 (i.e. total estimated sources too low or sinks too high). The global atmospheric CO2 concentration averaged over 2021 reached 414.71 ± 0.1 ppm. Preliminary data for 2022, suggest an increase in EFOS relative to 2021 of +1.1 % (0 % to 1.7 %) globally, and atmospheric CO2 concentration reaching 417.3 ppm, more than 50 % above pre-industrial level. Overall, the mean and trend in the components of the global carbon budget are consistently estimated over the period 1959–2021, but discrepancies of up to 1 GtC yr-1 persist for the representation of annual to semi-decadal variability in CO2 fluxes. Comparison of estimates from multiple approaches and observations shows: (1) a persistent large uncertainty in the estimate of land-use changes emissions, (2) a low agreement between the different methods on the magnitude of the land CO2 flux in the northern extra-tropics, and (3) a discrepancy between the different methods on the strength of the ocean sink over the last decade. This living data update documents changes in the methods and data sets used in this new global carbon budget and the progress in understanding of the global carbon cycle compared with previous publications of this data set (Friedlingstein et al., 2022a; Friedlingstein et al., 2020; Friedlingstein et al., 2019; Le Quéré et al., 2018b, 2018a, 2016, 2015b, 2015a, 2014, 2013). The data presented in this work are available at https://doi.org/10.18160/GCP-2022 (Friedlingstein et al., 2022b).

Marine particles of different nature are found throughout the global ocean. The term “marine particles” describes detritus aggregates and fecal pellets as well as bacterioplankton, phytoplankton, zooplankton and nekton. Here, we present a global particle size distribution dataset obtained with several Underwater Vision Profiler 5 (UVP5) camera systems. Overall, within the 64 µm to about 50 mm size range covered by the UVP5, detrital particles are the most abundant component of all marine particles; thus, measurements of the particle size distribution with the UVP5 can yield important information on detrital particle dynamics. During deployment, which is possible down to 6000 m depth, the UVP5 images a volume of about 1 L at a frequency of 6 to 20 Hz. Each image is segmented in real time, and size measurements of particles are automatically stored. All UVP5 units used to generate the dataset presented here were inter-calibrated using a UVP5 high-definition unit as reference. Our consistent particle size distribution dataset contains 8805 vertical profiles collected between 19 June 2008 and 23 November 2020. All major ocean basins, as well as the Mediterranean Sea and the Baltic Sea, were sampled. A total of 19 % of all profiles had a maximum sampling depth shallower than 200 dbar, 38 % sampled at least the upper 1000 dbar depth range and 11 % went down to at least 3000 dbar depth. First analysis of the particle size distribution dataset shows that particle abundance is found to be high at high latitudes and in coastal areas where surface productivity or continental inputs are elevated. The lowest values are found in the deep ocean and in the oceanic gyres. Our dataset should be valuable for more in-depth studies that focus on the analysis of regional, temporal and global patterns of particle size distribution and flux as well as for the development and adjustment of regional and global biogeochemical models. The marine particle size distribution dataset (Kiko et al., 2021) is available at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.924375.

Less than half of the anthropogenic carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere to drive climate change. The rest is being removed by mysterious processes in the land, biosphere, and ocean.

Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and their redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere in a changing climate is critical to better understand the global carbon cycle, support the development of climate policies, and project future climate change. Here we describe and synthesize data sets and methodology to quantify the five major components of the global carbon budget and their uncertainties. Fossil CO2 emissions (EFOS) are based on energy statistics and cement production data, while emissions from land-use change (ELUC), mainly deforestation, are based on land-use and land-use change data and bookkeeping models. Atmospheric CO2 concentration is measured directly, and its growth rate (GATM) is computed from the annual changes in concentration. The ocean CO2 sink (SOCEAN) is estimated with global ocean biogeochemistry models and observation-based data-products. The terrestrial CO2 sink (SLAND) is estimated with dynamic global vegetation models. The resulting carbon budget imbalance (BIM), the difference between the estimated total emissions and the estimated changes in the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere, is a measure of imperfect data and understanding of the contemporary carbon cycle. All uncertainties are reported as ±1σ. For the first time, an approach is shown to reconcile the difference in our ELUC estimate with the one from national greenhouse gases inventories, supporting the assessment of collective countries’ climate progress. For the year 2020, EFOS declined by 5.4 % relative to 2019, with fossil emissions at 9.5 ± 0.5 GtC yr−1 (9.3 ± 0.5 GtC yr−1 when the cement carbonation sink is included), ELUC was 0.9 ± 0.7 GtC yr−1, for a total anthropogenic CO2 emission of 10.2 ± 0.8 GtC yr−1 (37.4 ± 2.9 GtCO2). Also, for 2020, GATM was 5.0 ± 0.2 GtC yr−1 (2.4 ± 0.1 ppm yr−1), SOCEAN was 3.0 ± 0.4 GtC yr−1 and SLAND was 2.9 ± 1 GtC yr−1, with a BIM of −0.8 GtC yr−1. The global atmospheric CO2 concentration averaged over 2020 reached 412.45 ± 0.1 ppm. Preliminary data for 2021, suggest a rebound in EFOS relative to 2020 of +4.9 % (4.1 % to 5.7 %) globally. Overall, the mean and trend in the components of the global carbon budget are consistently estimated over the period 1959–2020, but discrepancies of up to 1 GtC yr−1 persist for the representation of annual to semi-decadal variability in CO2 fluxes. Comparison of estimates from multiple approaches and observations shows: (1) a persistent large uncertainty in the estimate of land-use changes emissions, (2) a low agreement between the different methods on the magnitude of the land CO2 flux in the northern extra- tropics, and (3) a discrepancy between the different methods on the strength of the ocean sink over the last decade. This living data update documents changes in the methods and data sets used in this new global carbon budget and the progress in understanding of the global carbon cycle compared with previous publications of this data set (Friedlingstein et al., 2020; Friedlingstein et al., 2019; Le Quéré et al., 2018b, 2018a, 2016, 2015b, 2015a, 2014, 2013). The data presented in this work are available at https://doi.org/10.18160/gcp-2021 (Friedlingstein et al., 2021).

A large number of water masses are presented in the Atlantic Ocean, and knowledge of their distributions and properties is important for understanding and monitoring of a range of oceanographic phenomena. The characteristics and distributions of water masses in biogeochemical space are useful for, in particular, chemical and biological oceanography to understand the origin and mixing history of water samples. Here, we define the characteristics of the major water masses in the Atlantic Ocean as source water types (SWTs) from their formation areas, and map out their distributions. The SWTs are described by six properties taken from the biased-adjusted Global Ocean Data Analysis Project version 2 (GLODAPv2) data product, including both conservative (conservative temperature and absolute salinity) and non-conservative (oxygen, silicate, phosphate and nitrate) properties. The distributions of these water masses are investigated with the use of the optimum multi-parameter (OMP) method and mapped out. The Atlantic Ocean is divided into four vertical layers by distinct neutral densities and four zonal layers to guide the identification and characterization. The water masses in the upper layer originate from wintertime subduction and are defined as central waters. Below the upper layer, the intermediate layer consists of three main water masses: Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW), Subarctic Intermediate Water (SAIW) and Mediterranean Water (MW). The North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW, divided into its upper and lower components) is the dominating water mass in the deep and overflow layer. The origin of both the upper and lower NADW is the Labrador Sea Water (LSW), the Iceland–Scotland Overflow Water (ISOW) and the Denmark Strait Overflow Water (DSOW). The Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) is the only natural water mass in the bottom layer, and this water mass is redefined as Northeast Atlantic Bottom Water (NEABW) in the north of the Equator due to the change of key properties, especially silicate. Similar with NADW, two additional water masses, Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) and Weddell Sea Bottom Water (WSBW), are defined in the Weddell Sea region in order to understand the origin of AABW.

Enhanced Southern Ocean ventilation in recent decades has been suggested to be a relevant modulator of the observed changes in ocean heat and carbon uptake. This study focuses on the Southern Ocean midlatitude ventilation changes from the 1960s to the 2010s. A global 1/4° configuration of the NEMO–Louvain-la-Neuve sea ice model, version 2 (LIM2), including the inert tracer CFC-12 (a proxy of ocean ventilation) is forced with the CORE, phase II (CORE-II), and JRA-55 driving ocean (JRA55-do) atmospheric reanalyses. Sensitivity experiments, where the variability of wind stress and/or the buoyancy forcing is suppressed on interannual time scales, are used to unravel the mechanisms driving ventilation changes. Ventilation changes are estimated by comparing CFC-12 interior inventories among the different experiments. All simulations suggest a multidecadal fluctuation of Southern Ocean ventilation, with a decrease until the 1980s–90s and a subsequent increase. This evolution is related to the atmospheric forcing and is caused by the (often counteracting) effects of wind stress and buoyancy forcing. Until the 1980s, increased buoyancy gains caused the ventilation decrease, whereas the subsequent ventilation increase was driven by strengthened wind stress causing deeper mixed layers and a stronger meridional overturning circulation. Wind stress emerges as the main driver of ventilation changes, even though buoyancy forcing modulates its trend and decadal variability. The three Southern Ocean basins take up CFC-12 in distinct density intervals but overall respond similarly to the atmospheric forcing. This study suggests that Southern Ocean ventilation is expected to increase as long as the effect of increasing Southern Hemisphere wind stress overwhelms that of increased stratification.

The last few decades have seen dramatic changes in the hydrography and biogeochemistry of the Mediterranean Sea. The complex bathymetry and highly variable spatial and temporal scales of atmospheric forcing, convective and ventilation processes contribute to generate complex and unsteady circulation patterns and significant variability in biogeochemical systems. Part of the variability of this system can be influenced by anthropogenic contributions. Consequently, it is necessary to document details and to understand trends in place to better relate the observed processes and to possibly predict the consequences of these changes. In this context we report data from an oceanographic cruise in the Mediterranean Sea on the German research vessel Maria S. Merian (MSM72) in March 2018. The main objective of the cruise was to contribute to the understanding of long-term changes and trends in physical and biogeochemical parameters, such as the anthropogenic carbon uptake and to further assess the hydrographical situation after the major climatological shifts in the eastern and western part of the basin, known as the Eastern and Western Mediterranean Transients. During the cruise, multidisciplinary measurements were conducted on a predominantly zonal section throughout the Mediterranean Sea, contributing to the Med-SHIP and GO-SHIP long-term repeat cruise section that is conducted at regular intervals in the Mediterranean Sea to observe changes and impacts on physical and biogeochemical variables. The data can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.905902 (Hainbucher et al., 2019), https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.913512 (Hainbucher, 2020a) https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.913608, (Hainbucher, 2020b) https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.913505, (Hainbucher, 2020c) https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.905887 (Tanhua et al., 2019) and https://doi.org/10.25921/z7en-hn85 (Tanhua et al, 2020).

The Labrador Sea plays a central role in the oceanic storage of carbon. In particular, several studies have shown that this region has amongst the highest integrated column inventories of anthropogenic carbon (Cant) in the world’s ocean. The rate at which Cant is stored in this region appears to be connected to changes in ocean circulation and can therefore vary over time. Nevertheless, it is still unclear whether the temporal variability of the total Dissolved Inorganic Carbon (DIC) inventory is solely due to the changes in Cant concentrations or whether there is a contribution of the natural component of DIC to this signal.The Bedford Institute of Oceanography has been maintaining the Atlantic Zone Off-Shore Monitoring Program (AZOMP) in the Labrador Sea since the early 1990s. The AZOMP involves annual occupations of the AR7W line that crosses the Labrador Sea and includes sampling of DIC, as well as multiple transient tracers such as CFC-12 and SF6. By using observations of DIC along the AR7W line, as well as previous estimates of Cant obtained with transient tracers (using a refined version of the Transit Time Distribution method; TTD) and new estimates of Cant based on the extended Multiple Linear Regression (eMLR) method, we provide a first insight on the role that the natural component of DIC plays in the temporal variability of inorganic carbon in the central Labrador Sea between 1993 and 2016.We show that different methods to estimate Cant can lead to different conclusions on the role of the natural variability of DIC and that these discrepancies could be related to the assumptions implied in the Cant estimation methods. In particular an analysis of Cant estimates obtained with our refined version of the TTD method in different water masses, highlighted that further refinement of the tracers’ saturation assumption could be necessary in this region. This refinement could reconcile the Cant estimates from the two methods and therefore lead to an unambiguous role of the natural DIC in this region.

Recent studies point to pronounced decadal variability in the Southern Ocean carbon sink over the past decades, but the mechanisms are still not fully understood. In this study, the regional patterns and bio-physical drivers of the interannual-to-decadal variability of the air-sea CO2 fluxes in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) are investigated. A suite of global ocean biogeochemistry configurations (based on the NEMO-MOPS model) is used to perform hindcast experiments covering the period 1958-2018. The configurations include a non-eddying 0.5° model, an eddy-permitting 0.25° model, and a global 0.5° model featuring an eddy-rich 0.1° nest between 30°S and 68°S. The 0.25° model is also used to perform additional sensitivity experiments, where the variability of the wind stress or of the buoyancy forcing is suppressed on interannual time scales. All simulations show a positive trend in the air-sea CO2 fluxes over ACC, with a weaker rate of increase in the 1970s and in the 1990s, and a stronger rate of increase in the 1980s and 2000s. The interannual and decadal variability of air-sea CO2 fluxes is highest in frontal regions of the ACC, especially in the Southeast Pacific basin. Wind stress emerges as the dominant driver of the large interannual and decadal variability of air-sea CO2 fluxes at subpolar latitudes. On the other hand, air-sea buoyancy fluxes gain more relevance at middle latitudes. The simulations highlight the relevant role of explicitly simulating ocean mesoscale eddies for the Southern Ocean carbon uptake. Indeed, the 0.1º model shows a steeper trend of the Southern Ocean carbon uptake with respect to the lower-resolution models, driven to a large extent by a higher uptake of anthropogenic carbon.

The ocean absorbs around a quarter of the annual man-made CO2 emissions, with the Southern Ocean being responsible for the lion-share of this uptake. Despite the disproportional role of the Southern Ocean in taking up anthropogenic CO2, it still remains one of the most sparsely observed ocean regions. While autonomous measurement devices have started to fill this void, high quality shipboard measurements remain limited. One fleet with the potential to fill this gap has thus far received little attention: sailboats. There is growing willingness among skippers to help science, providing a opportunity to collect valuable measurements of the sea surface partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) during round-the-world racing events. Using the latest membrane sensor technology, we have thus far – together with professional racing teams - collected high frequency measurements of the sea surface pCO2 from nearly all ocean basins and most notably in remote southern hemisphere ocean regions where no shipboard pCO2 data were collected in the past 70 years (based on the SOCAT database). Our results highlight the potential for equipping sail yachts as a low-cost solution to fill data gaps and provide a new constraint for high resolution model studies.

The Global Ocean Data Analysis Project (GLODAP) is a synthesis effort providing regular compilations of surface-to-bottom ocean biogeochemical bottle data, with an emphasis on seawater inorganic carbon chemistry and related variables determined through chemical analysis of seawater samples. GLODAPv2.2022 is an update of the previous version, GLODAPv2.2021 (Lauvset et al., 2021). The major changes are as follows: data from 96 new cruises were added, data coverage was extended until 2021, and for the first time we performed secondary quality control on all sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) data. In addition, a number of changes were made to data included in GLODAPv2.2021. These changes affect specifically the SF6 data, which are now subjected to secondary quality control, and carbon data measured on board the RV Knorr in the Indian Ocean in 1994–1995 which are now adjusted using certified reference material (CRM) measurements made at the time. GLODAPv2.2022 includes measurements from almost 1.4 million water samples from the global oceans collected on 1085 cruises. The data for the now 13 GLODAP core variables (salinity, oxygen, nitrate, silicate, phosphate, dissolved inorganic carbon, total alkalinity, pH, chlorofluorocarbon-11 (CFC-11), CFC-12, CFC-113, CCl4, and SF6) have undergone extensive quality control with a focus on systematic evaluation of bias. The data are available in two formats: (i) as submitted by the data originator but converted to World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) exchange format and (ii) as a merged data product with adjustments applied to minimize bias. For the present annual update, adjustments for the 96 new cruises were derived by comparing those data with the data from the 989 quality-controlled cruises in the GLODAPv2.2021 data product using crossover analysis. SF6 data from all cruises were evaluated by comparison with CFC-12 data measured on the same cruises. For nutrients and ocean carbon dioxide (CO2) chemistry comparisons to estimates based on empirical algorithms provided additional context for adjustment decisions. The adjustments that we applied are intended to remove potential biases from errors related to measurement, calibration, and data handling practices without removing known or likely time trends or variations in the variables evaluated. The compiled and adjusted data product is believed to be consistent to better than 0.005 in salinity, 1 % in oxygen, 2 % in nitrate, 2 % in silicate, 2 % in phosphate, 4 µmol kg−1 in dissolved inorganic carbon, 4 µmol kg−1 in total alkalinity, 0.01–0.02 in pH (depending on region), and 5 % in the halogenated transient tracers. The other variables included in the compilation, such as isotopic tracers and discrete CO2 fugacity (f CO2), were not subjected to bias comparison or adjustments. The original data, their documentation, and DOI codes are available at the Ocean Carbon and Acidification Data System of NOAA NCEI (https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/ocean-carbon-acidification-data-system/oceans/GLODAPv2_2022/, last access: 15 August 2022). This site also provides access to the merged data product, which is provided as a single global file and as four regional ones – the Arctic, Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans – under https://doi.org/10.25921/1f4w-0t92 (Lauvset et al., 2022). These bias-adjusted product files also include significant ancillary and approximated data, which were obtained by interpolation of, or calculation from, measured data. This living data update documents the GLODAPv2.2022 methods and provides a broad overview of the secondary quality control procedures and results., Earth System Science Data, 14 (12), ISSN:1866-3516, ISSN:1866-3508

The water samples were collected during ESAW ('Evolution and spreading of the Southern Adriatic Waters') cruise (leg 2, Split – Split, r/v BIOS DVA, 05/04/2016 – 10/04/2016). The targets were two cross-shore transects in the Middle and Southern Adriatic Sea. The biogeochemistry comprises oxygen, nutrients, carbonate system, and anthropic (CFCs, SF6) parameters. The fieldwork was supported by the EUROFLEETS2, funded by the European Commission (grant agreement No. 312762).

The neodymium isotopic composition (εNd) of seawater is one of the most important geochemical tracers to investigate water mass provenance, which can also serve as a proxy to reconstruct past variations in ocean circulation. Nd isotopes have recently also been used to reconstruct past circulation changes in theMediterranean Sea on different time scales. However, the modern seawater ε Nd dataset for the Mediterranean Sea, which these reconstructions are based on, is limited and up to now only 160 isotopic measurements are available for the entire basin. The lack of present-day data also limits our understanding of the processes controlling the Nd cycle and Nd isotopic distribution in this semi-enclosed basin. Here we present new εNd data from 24 depth profiles covering all Mediterranean sub-basins, which significantly increases the available dataset in the Mediterranean Sea. The main goal of our study is to better characterize the relationship between the dissolved Nd isotope distributions and major water masses in the Mediterranean Sea and to investigate the impact and relative importance of local non-conservative modifications, which include input of riverine particles and waters, aeolian-derived material and exchange with the sediments at continental margins . This comprehensive εNd dataset reveals a clear εNd – salinity correlation and a zonal and depth gradient with εNd systematically increasing from the western to the eastern Mediterranean basin (average εNd = −8.8 ± 0.8 and −6.7 ± 1 for the entire water column, respectively), reflecting the large-scale basin circulation. We have evaluated the conservative εNd behaviour in theMediterranean Sea and quantified the non-conservative components of the ε Nd signatures by applying an Optimum Multiparameter (OMP) analysis and results from the Parametric Optimum Multiparameter (POMP) analysis of Jullion et al. (2017). The results of the present study combined with previously published Nd isotope values indicate that dissolved εNd behaves overall conservatively in the open Mediterranean Sea and show that its water masses are clearly distinguishable by their Nd isotope signature. However, misfits between measured and OMP- and POMP-derived εNd values exist in almost all sub-basins, especially in the eastern Levantine Basin and Alboran Sea at intermediate-deep depths, which can be explained by the influence of detrital lithogenic εNd signatures through interaction with highly radiogenic Nile sourced volcanic fractions and unradiogenic sediments, respectively. The radiogenic signature acquired in the eastern Levantine Basin is carried by the Levantine Intermediate Water and transferred conservatively to the entire Mediterranean at intermediate depths. Our measured εNd values and OMP- and POMP-derived results indicate that non-conservative contributions originating from sediment sources are then propagated by water mass circulation (with distinct preformed εNd) along the Mediterranean Sea through advection and conservative mixing. Mediterranean εNd effectively traces the mixing between the different water masses in this semi-enclosed basin and is a suitable water mass tracer.

Report about progress across all WPs and tasks during project month 15-30, going to be used by ISTAB for evaluation of project status and progress

This deliverable describes the process of establishing global coordination for sustained observations of marine plastics litter as a new type of Essential Ocean Variable (EOV) addressing the aspect of observing human impacts on the ocean. The document reports on the EuroSea efforts to implement a community vision for an Integrated Marine Debris Observing System (IMDOS) as a new element of the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS). First version of the Marine Plastics Litter EOV Specification Sheet is included. Progress towards establishing common sampling protocols for marine plastic litter in Europe and beyond are described.

A review of the existing reporting tools about Regional Ocean Observing Systems and perspective toward future European Ocean Observing System monitoring and reporting services.

Identifying existing initiatives in foresight in ocean observation, emerging strategies and roadmaps.

The last few decades have seen dramatic changes in the hydrography and biogeochemistry of the Mediterranean Sea. The complex bathymetry and highly variable spatial and temporal scales of atmospheric forcing, convective and ventilation processes contribute to generate complex and unsteady circulation patterns and significant variability in biogeochemical systems. Part of the variability of this system can be influenced by anthropogenic contributions. Consequently, it is necessary to document details and to understand trends in place to better relate the observed processes and to possibly predict the consequences of these changes. In this context we report data from an oceanographic cruise in the Mediterranean Sea on the German research vessel Maria S. Merian (MSM72) in March 2018. The main objective of the cruise was to contribute to the understanding of long-term changes and trends in physical and biogeochemical parameters, such as the anthropogenic carbon uptake and to further assess the hydrographical situation after the major climatological shifts in the eastern and western part of the basin, known as the Eastern and Western Mediterranean Transients. During the cruise, multidisciplinary measurements were conducted on a predominantly zonal section throughout the Mediterranean Sea, contributing to the Med-SHIP and GO-SHIP long-term repeat cruise section that is conducted at regular intervals in the Mediterranean Sea to observe changes and impacts on physical and biogeochemical variables. The data can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.905902 (Hainbucher et al., 2019), https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.913512 (Hainbucher, 2020a) https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.913608, (Hainbucher, 2020b) https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.913505, (Hainbucher, 2020c) https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.905887 (Tanhua et al., 2019) and https://doi.org/10.25921/z7en-hn85 (Tanhua et al, 2020).

4 pages, 1 figure.-- This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, The ocean is mitigating global warming by absorbing large amounts of excess carbon dioxide from human activities. To quantify and monitor the ocean carbon sink, we need a state-of-the-art data resource that makes data submission and retrieval machine-compatible and efficient, This effort has been supported by EU Horizon 2020 through the EuroSea action (grant no. 862626), the Helmholtz Association through “Digital Earth” (grant no. ZT-0025), L.C.C. acknowledges the UERJ/Prociencia grant (2018-2021), M.H. acknowledge EU Horizon 2020 action SO-CHIC (grant N°821001). B.C., R.A.F., E.B., K.O’.B., and R.W. were supported by NOAA/OAR and NOAA/GOMO (fund ref. 100007298), B.T. was partly supported by Australia’s Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS), S.K.L. acknowledges internal strategic funding from NORCE Climate, M.T. acknowledges support from the US NSF grant OCE-1840868 to SCOR. The PMEL and CICOES contributions are 5253 and 2020-1141, respectively