Table of Contents

• Dataset Description
  • Methods & Sampling
• Data Files
• Parameters
• Instruments
• Deployments
• Project Information
• Program Information

Bio Optical Profiler Data

   PI:             Curtiss Davis
   of:             Jet Propusion Laboratory
   dataset:        Bio Optical Profiler Data
   dates:          April 25, 1989 to May 08, 1989 
   location:       N: 47.0112  S: 46.2827  W: -20.1635  E: -19.0353
   project/cruise  North Atlantic Bloom Experiment/Atlantis II 119, leg 4
   ship:           R/V Atlantis II
 
Methodology: Bio-Optical profiling observations
R/V Atlantis II,  25 April - 10 May 1989
November 07, 2002

Data Description: 

Optical data was collected with a Bio-Optical Profiling System (BOPS) an updated version of the BOPS originally developed by Smith et al. (1984). The heart of the BOPS is a Biospherical instruments MER-1048 Spectroradiometer which measures up and downwelling spectral irradiance and upwelling spectral radiance. The MER-1048 also has sensors for Photosynthetically Available Radiation (PAR), depth, tilt and roll. In addition, temperature and conductivity are measured with a Sea-Bird CTD, chlorophyll fluorescence is measured with a Sea Tech fluorometer and bean transmission with a Sea Tech 25-cm transmissometer. The Mer-1048 acquires all the data 16 times a second, averages it to four records a second and sends it up the cable to a deck box and a Compaq-286 computer which stores the data on the hard disk. Additionally, a deck cell measures the downwelling surface irradiance in four spectral channels. Also surface PAR was measured continuously using a Biospherical Instruments QSR-240 Integrating PAR sensor. The profile data was filtered to remove obvious data spikes and then binned into one-meter averages.

Reference: Smith, R.C., C.R. Booth, and J.L. Star, Oceanographic bio-optical profiling system. Applied Optics, 23, 2791-2797, 1984

One of the first major activities of JGOFS was a multinational pilot project, North Atlantic Bloom Experiment (NABE), carried out along longitude 20° West in 1989 through 1991. The United States participated in 1989 only, with the April deployment of two sediment trap arrays at 48° and 34° North. Three process-oriented cruises where conducted, April through July 1989, from R/V Atlantis II and R/V Endeavor focusing on sites at 46° and 59° North. Coordination of the NABE process-study cruises was supported by NSF-OCE award # 8814229. Ancillary sea surface mapping and AXBT profiling data were collected from NASA's P3 aircraft for a series of one day flights, April through June 1989.

A detailed description of NABE and the initial synthesis of the complete program data collection efforts appear in: Topical Studies in Oceanography, JGOFS: The North Atlantic Bloom Experiment (1993), Deep-Sea Research II, Volume 40 No. 1/2.

The U.S. JGOFS Data management office compiled a preliminary NABE data report of U.S. activities: Slagle, R. and G. Heimerdinger, 1991. U.S. Joint Global Ocean Flux Study, North Atlantic Bloom Experiment, Process Study Data Report P-1, April-July 1989. NODC/U.S. JGOFS Data Management Office, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 315 pp. (out of print).

The United States Joint Global Ocean Flux Study was a national component of international JGOFS and an integral part of global climate change research.

The U.S. launched the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS) in the late 1980s to study the ocean carbon cycle. An ambitious goal was set to understand the controls on the concentrations and fluxes of carbon and associated nutrients in the ocean. A new field of ocean biogeochemistry emerged with an emphasis on quality measurements of carbon system parameters and interdisciplinary field studies of the biological, chemical and physical process which control the ocean carbon cycle. As we studied ocean biogeochemistry, we learned that our simple views of carbon uptake and transport were severely limited, and a new "wave" of ocean science was born. U.S. JGOFS has been supported primarily by the U.S. National Science Foundation in collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Department of Energy and the Office of Naval Research. U.S. JGOFS, ended in 2005 with the conclusion of the Synthesis and Modeling Project (SMP).