Water temperature, partial pressure of carbon dioxide, and other data from CTD, gas and optical sensors taken from the slocum glider in the Gulf of Alaska from 2016-05-19 to 2017-05-18 (NCEI Accession 0170784)

The waters around Alaska are undergoing unprecedented environmental change that includes warming temperatures, extensive sea-ice losses, increases in storm frequency/magnitude, freshening, elevated rates of coastal erosion, increasing inputs of terrestrial organic matter, and ocean acidification, all of which could impact cycling of carbon in the Arctic at a fast pace. Exploration and development of offshore energy resources may also have an effect on biology and/or the stability of the water column, and could therefore indirectly influence the carbon cycle. Traditional ship based observations are operationally expensive and are also insufficient to provide the type of spatial and temporal coverage of dissolved CO2 measurements required for an improved conceptual understanding and quantitative assessment of the region’s carbon cycle. The main goal of this project was the development of a Carbon Glider to autonomously measure spatial and temporal high-resolution data of dissolved CO2 throughout the water column. This involved the design of a customized Pro-Oceanus pCO2 sensor, integration of the physical, power, communication, and software systems of the sensor with the Teledyne Webb Research (TWR) Slocum Glider, and development of glider hover missions that allow for full sensor equilibration and the use of sensors with slower response times. As a result of this project, we brought the Carbon Glider to a Technology Readiness Level 6 (TRL-6 per NASA), with demonstrated capacity of pCO2 data collection during glider flight missions at sea. However, some issues remain to be solved before the Carbon Glider can be advanced to a full operational level. Due to operational difficulties, pCO2 data from the glider missions were not calibrated with in situ measurements. Data are in CSV format.