Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT)

Carbon cycle, entry
The Surface Ocean CO₂ Atlas (SOCAT) is a synthesis activity for quality-controlled, surface ocean fCO₂ (fugacity of carbon dioxide) observations by the international marine carbon research community (>100 contributors). It has over 20 million fCO₂ measurements .

access
published yes
availability public
link raw data and code https://www.socat.info/index.php/data-access/ gridded data https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/ocads/data/0173715.xml

descriptors
type observations (raw)
gridded yes
formats nc, txt, odv,  tsv

temporal
period historical
coverage 1957–2017
resolution decadal, annual, monthly, instantaneous

spatial
coverage global
resolution global 1° by 1° coastal 0.25° by 0.25°
depth surface
figureSource: Figure 1 from Bakker et al. (2016)

Major Variables

Key References

  • Bakker, D et al. (2016). A multi-decade record of high quality fCO₂ data in version 3 of the Surface Ocean CO₂ Atlas (SOCAT). Earth System Science Data, 8, 383-413. https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-8-383-2016.