Measurement of sea surface partial pressure of C02 from a moored buoy

An autonomous analytical system for measuring the difference in partial pressure of CO2 between the sea surface and the atmosphere was constructed and deployed on a buoy moored off the central coast of California. The apparatus was based on the conventional analytical techniques of sea surface gas equilibrium and non-dispersive infrared spectrometry. Hourly data were collected for a 70 day period in the winter-spring of 1993. Internal and shipboard calibrations indicate that an accuracy of 1–2 μatm was achieved and that long-term instrument drift was minimal.