The GEOTRACES Intermediate Data Product 2014

Abstract

The GEOTRACES Intermediate Data Product 2014 (IDP2014) is the first publicly available data product of the international GEOTRACES programme, and contains data measured and quality controlled before the end of 2013. It consists of two parts: (1) a compilation of digital data for more than 200 trace elements and isotopes (TEls) as well as classical hydrographic parameters, and (2) the eGEOTRACES Electronic Atlas providing a strongly inter-linked on-line atlas including more than 300 section plots and 90 animated 3D scenes. The IDP2014 covers the Atlantic, Arctic, and Indian oceans, exhibiting highest data density in the Atlantic. The TEI data in the IDP2014 are quality controlled by careful assessment of intercalibration results and multi-laboratory data comparisons at cross-over stations. The digital data are provided in several formats, including ASCII spreadsheet, Excel spreadsheet, netCDF, and Ocean Data View collection. In addition to the actual data values the IDP2014 also contains data quality flags and 1-sigma data error values where available. Quality flags and error values are useful for data filtering. Metadata about data originators, analytical methods and original publications related to the data are linked to the data in an easily accessible way. The eGEOTRACES Electronic Atlas is the visual representation of the IDP2014 data providing section plots and a new kind of animated 3D scenes. The basin-wide 3D scenes allow for viewing of data from many cruises at the same time, thereby providing quick overviews of large-scale tracer distributions. In addition, the 3D scenes provide geographical and bathymetric context that is crucial for the interpretation and assessment of observed tracer plumes, as well as for making inferences about controlling processes. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V

Testing models of thorium and particle cycling in the ocean using data from station GT11-22 of the U.S. GEOTRACES North Atlantic section

“…All Niskin and in-situ pump casts were operated over the course of the 26-hour 215 occupation of the station. These data can be found in the GEOTRACES Intermediate Data Product 216 (Mawji and et al, 2015). the McLane pump below 1000 m, and were also analyzed using beta counting (Owens et al, 2015).…”

Diagnosing oceanic nutrient deficiency

“…The overall ratios of nutrient supply to a region of the ocean surface can be decoupled from concentration ratios in source waters by additional external sources, including from the atmosphere or continental margin/sediment interactions [34][35][36][37]. Thus, although nutrient deficiency may be linked to the potential for limitation, it cannot be taken as a sufficient condition Plot of 'typical' phytoplankton cellular stoichiometry against measured dissolved stoichiometry (figure 1) from the thermocline of the North Atlantic Sub-tropical Gyre (NASG) (more than 25°N to less than 35°N) from the GEOTRACES IDP [20]. For clarity/simplicity, known stoichiometric flexibility is disregarded.…”

“…For example, 28 combinations could be derived from simply considering the eight nutrients at least as deficient as Si within the water volume considered in figure 2. Moreover, with the exception of the macronutrients (N, P and Si), until recently [20] there has been a lack of high-quality multi-nutrient datasets with which to undertake a broader analysis.…”

“…Indeed, despite the long hiatus between the earliest suggestions that Fe limitation may be an important process in oceanic systems and development of the analytical techniques which made rigorous investigation of this problem possible [16], the potential for trace metal (co-)limitation of phytoplankton productivity is now firmly established [11,[17][18][19]. The advent of the high-quality global-scale datasets which are emerging as a result of the international GEOTRACES project [20] promises to be further transformative in our understanding of the linked biogeochemical cycles of multiple nutrients in oceanic systems.…”

Latitudinal distributions of particulate carbon export across the North Western Atlantic Ocean

“…Combined, they averaged 5 ± 1% (n = 344) and were always ≤ 10%. 234 Th and 238 U activities along the GA02 transect are available online (British Oceanographic Data Centre, http://www.bodc.ac.uk/geotraces/data/idp2014/) and are part of the GEOTRACES Intermediate Data Product 2014 (Mawji et al, 2015).…”