Table of Contents

• Coverage
• Dataset Description
  • Methods & Sampling
  • Data Processing Description
• Data Files
• Related Publications
• Parameters
• Instruments
• Deployments
• Project Information
• Program Information
• Funding

High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) pigment data from the CARIACO time series stations and analyzed at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center for the cruises from 2011-01-11 to 2017-01-12.

Below are the additional CARIACO HPLC data at BCO-DMO which were analyzed at different laboratories:

Bermuda Biological Research Station from 1995-12-13 to 1998-04-21 (cruises CAR-002 to CAR-030):
www.bco-dmo.org/dataset/3293
Mote Marine Laboratory from 1998-06-09 to 2001-07-10 (cruises CAR-031 to CAR-068):
www.bco-dmo.org/dataset/3292
Horn Point Laboratory from 2006-07-04 to 2010-12-08 (cruises CAR-124 to CAR-175):
www.bco-dmo.org/dataset/3235

These data  were also funded by the following awards:
- 23914: Ley Orgánica de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación, LOCTI (Estación de Investigaciones Marinas), Venezuela.
- 2011000353: Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research, IAI (IAI-CRN3094).

Water for the HPLC filters was collected from the first cast done during the CARIACO core cruises, carried out around 5 am local time. During periods of low primary production, 2000 ml. of water were vacuum filtered through a 47mm GF/F filter pad. During periods of high primary production, water was filtered until the filter was clogged. The volume of water filtered was annotated. Eight depths were sampled: 1, 7, 15, 25, 35, 55, 75 and 100 m. If a chlorophyll maximum was found at a different depth, this depth was also sampled. A duplicate was taken at one of these depths (usually at 1m), for QA/QC assessment. Filters were carefully folded in half, stored in aluminum foil and refrigerated until reaching shore. Once back on shore, they were stored frozen at -40°C. Filters were transported from Margarita Island to USF and stored frozen (at -40°C) until they were shipped in a liquid-nitrogen storage to the laboratory that performed the HPLC analysis. The CARIACO samples of HPLC were analyzed by: Bermuda Biological Research Station, BBRS (CAR-002 to CAR-030); MOTE Marine Laboratory & Aquarium (CAR-031 to CAR-068), Horn Point Laboratory, HPL (CAR-124 to CAR-175); and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, GSFC (CAR-176 to CAR-232). Analysis at HPL and GSFC were carried out according to the method described in Hooker et al. (2005), Chapter 5. The HPLC parameter names as reported in this dataset correspond to the pigment names as defined in the NASA SeaWiFS Bio-optical Archive and Storage System (SeaBASS) (https://seabass.gsfc.nasa.gov/wiki/stdfields). Fluorometric estimations of chlorophyll-a and phaeopigments concentrations were done with a Turner Design10-AU-005 Fluorometer using standard methods (Holm-Hansen et al., 1965; Falkowski and Kiefer, 1985). The detailed methodology for the determination of Chlorophyll a and Phaeopigments can be found in the HANDBOOK OF METHODS FOR THE ANALYSIS OF OCEANOGRAPHIC PARAMETERS AT THE CARIACO TIME-SERIES STATION,  edited by Astor, Lorenzoni and Scranton (2011).  (https://seabass.gsfc.nasa.gov/archive/USF/FMK/CARIACO/2015/documents/CARIACO_Methods_Manual.pdf)

BCO-DMO processing notes:
- added conventional header with dataset name, PI name, version date
- modified parameter names to conform with BCO-DMO naming conventions

Since 1995, the CARIACO Ocean Time-Series (formerly known as the CArbon Retention In A Colored Ocean) Program has studied the relationship between surface primary production, physical forcing variables like the wind, and the settling flux of particulate carbon in the Cariaco Basin. This depression, located on the continental shelf of Venezuela (Map), shows marked seasonal and interannual variation in hydrographic properties and primary production (carbon fixation rates by photosynthesis of planktonic algae).

This peculiar basin is anoxic below ~250 m, due its restricted circulation and high primary production (Muller-Karger et al., 2001). CARIACO observations show annual primary production rates exceed 500 gC/m²y, of which over 15-20% can be accounted for by events lasting one month or less. Such events are observed in other locations where time series observations are collected, and suggest that prior estimates of regional production based on limited sampling may have been underestimated. The annual primary production rates in the Cariaco Basin are comparable to rates estimated using time series observations for Monterey Bay (460 gC/m²y; Chavez, 1996), and higher than previous rates estimated for Georges Bank, the New York Shelf, and the Oregon Shelf (380, 300, and 190 gC/m²y, respectively; Walsh, 1988).

The Cariaco Basin has long been the center of attention of scientists trying to explain paleoclimate. Due to its high rates of sedimentation (30 to >100 cm/ky; Peterson et al., 2000) and excellent preservation, the varved sediments of the Cariaco Basin offer the opportunity to study high resolution paleoclimate and better understand the role of the tropics in global climate change ( Black et al., 1999; Peterson et al., 2000; Haug et al., 2001; Black et al., 2004; Hughen et al., 2004 ).

Now, the CARIACO program provides a link between the sediment record and processes near the surface of the ocean. Sediment traps maintained by the CARIACO program show that over 5% of autochtonous material reaches 275 m depth, and that nearly 2% reaches 1,400 m. The significance of this flux is that it represents a sink for carbon and that it helps explain the record of ancient climate stored at the bottom of the Cariaco Basin.

Acknowledgements: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and Venezuela's Fondo Nacional de Ciencia, Tecnologí­a e Innovación (FONACIT). For more information please see this Acknowledgements link.

The Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry (OCB) program focuses on the ocean's role as a component of the global Earth system, bringing together research in geochemistry, ocean physics, and ecology that inform on and advance our understanding of ocean biogeochemistry. The overall program goals are to promote, plan, and coordinate collaborative, multidisciplinary research opportunities within the U.S. research community and with international partners. Important OCB-related activities currently include: the Ocean Carbon and Climate Change (OCCC) and the North American Carbon Program (NACP); U.S. contributions to IMBER, SOLAS, CARBOOCEAN; and numerous U.S. single-investigator and medium-size research projects funded by U.S. federal agencies including NASA, NOAA, and NSF.

The scientific mission of OCB is to study the evolving role of the ocean in the global carbon cycle, in the face of environmental variability and change through studies of marine biogeochemical cycles and associated ecosystems.

The overarching OCB science themes include improved understanding and prediction of: 1) oceanic uptake and release of atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases and 2) environmental sensitivities of biogeochemical cycles, marine ecosystems, and interactions between the two.

The OCB Research Priorities (updated January 2012) include: ocean acidification; terrestrial/coastal carbon fluxes and exchanges; climate sensitivities of and change in ecosystem structure and associated impacts on biogeochemical cycles; mesopelagic ecological and biogeochemical interactions; benthic-pelagic feedbacks on biogeochemical cycles; ocean carbon uptake and storage; and expanding low-oxygen conditions in the coastal and open oceans.

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).

Program description text taken from Chapter 1: Introduction from the Global Intercomparability in a Changing Ocean: An International Time-Series Methods Workshop report published following the workshop held November 28-30, 2012 at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences. The full report is available from the workshop Web site hosted by US OCB: http://www.whoi.edu/website/TS-workshop/home

Decades of research have demonstrated that the ocean varies across a range of time scales, with anthropogenic forcing contributing an added layer of complexity. In a growing effort to distinguish between natural and human-induced earth system variability, sustained ocean time-series measurements have taken on a renewed importance. Shipboard biogeochemical time-series represent one of the most valuable tools scientists have to characterize and quantify ocean carbon fluxes and biogeochemical processes and their links to changing climate (Karl, 2010; Chavez et al., 2011; Church et al., 2013). They provide the oceanographic community with the long, temporally resolved datasets needed to characterize ocean climate, biogeochemistry, and ecosystem change.

The temporal scale of shifts in marine ecosystem variations in response to climate change are on the order of several decades.  The long-term, consistent and comprehensive monitoring programs conducted by time-series sites are essential to understand large-scale atmosphere-ocean interactions that occur on interannual to decadal time scales.  Ocean time-series represent one of the most valuable tools scientists have to characterize and quantify ocean carbon fluxes and biogeochemical processes and their links to changing climate.

Launched in the late 1980s, the US JGOFS (Joint Global Ocean Flux Study; http://usjgofs.whoi.edu) research program initiated two time-series measurement programs at Hawaii and Bermuda (HOT and BATS, respectively) to measure key oceanographic measurements in oligotrophic waters. Begun in 1995 as part of the US JGOFS Synthesis and Modeling Project, the CARIACO Ocean Time-Series (formerly known as the CArbon Retention In A Colored Ocean) Program has studied the relationship between surface primary production, physical forcing variables like the wind, and the settling flux of particulate carbon in the Cariaco Basin.

The objective of these time-series effort is to provide well-sampled seasonal resolution of biogeochemical variability at a limited number of ocean observatories, provide support and background measurements for process-oriented research, as well as test and validate observations for biogeochemical models. Since their creation, the BATS, CARIACO and HOT time-series site data have been available for use by a large community of researchers.
 
Data from those three US funded, ship-based, time-series sites can be accessed at each site directly or by selecting the site name from the Projects section below.