2008 Annual Report - NASA Airborne Science Program

SOGASEX
Science Focus: Carbon Cycle & Ecosystems
Sponsor: P. Bontempi, NASA HQ; M. Uz, NOAA
Location: South Atlantic Ocean
Photo courtesy of Alejandro Cifuentes-Lorenzen
The ability to accurately model
future atmospheric carbon
dioxide (CO 2 ) levels and
understand the partitioning
of CO 2 between the oceans
and terrestrial biosphere are significant
research topics in understanding climate
change. The Southern Ocean Gas Exchange
Experiment (SOGASEX) was a major 2008
field campaign to improve our understanding
of the forcing factors of climate change by
characterizing air-sea CO 2 fluxes and gas
transfer velocities over the open ocean.
SOGASEX was a collaborative mission
conducted on the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
research vessel Ronald H. Brown. The
experiment took place in the southwest
Atlantic Ocean in the austral fall of 2008,
near the South Georgia Island, in some of
the roughest sea states in the world. The
Ron Brown departed Punta Arenas, Chile, on
February 29, 2008, headed for the study site,
and arrived in Montevideo, Uruguay, on April
12, 2008, 43 days later. Thirty-one scientists,
representing 22 institutions, comprised the
on-board science team. In a departure from
the support the ASP normally provides to
airborne field campaigns, in this case, our field
deployment experience was used to support
a ship-borne mission.
SOGASEX obtained important observations
on fluxes and gas transfer velocities, along
with water chemistry, wave heights and wind
speeds, and optical transmittance, and was
the first mission of its kind to gather CO2 flux
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