Metadata Report for BODC Series Reference Number 2137421
Metadata Summary
Problem Reports
Data Access Policy
Narrative Documents
Project Information
Data Activity or Cruise Information
Fixed Station Information
BODC Quality Flags
SeaDataNet Quality Flags
Metadata Summary
Data Description |
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Time Co-ordinates(UT) |
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Parameters |
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Problem Reports
No Problem Report Found in the Database
Data Access Policy
Open Data supplied by Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
You must always use the following attribution statement to acknowledge the source of the information: "Contains data supplied by Natural Environment Research Council."
Narrative Documents
Skalar San+ Autoanalyzer
The San+ Autoanalyzer is an Automated Wet Chemistry Analyzer (Continuous Flow Analyzer) which has been designed as a modular system to measure a variety of water chemistry characteristics, such as nutrient concentrations in seawater. Individual modules are tailored to specific needs. It uses Continuous Flow Analysis (CFA), allowing up to 16 analytical measurements to be made on a single sample simultaneously. The system comprises a sampler, chemistry section, detector and specialist software.
Chemistry section
The San+ includes a chemistry section which has hundreds of applications. It houses up to five chemistry cartridges with built-in dosing pump and air injection systems, up to five interchangeable cartridges with build-in photometric detectors and five separate waste receptacles. The throughput of the analyser depends upon application and can vary from 25 to 120 analyses per hour. It has a double diameter pump deck for accurate dosing with 32 pump tubes, two separated pump decks for 2 x 2 channel concept, and controlled synchronised eight channel air injection with separate built-in compressor for increased flow stability and fast start-up. It has easy access to chemistry cartridges with flexible ultra low carry-over connections between dialysers, reactors, coils, flow cells and other components, leak detection, 3-cuffs long life pump tubes, and has manually operated and automatic rinsing valves for easy automatic start up and overnight operation.
Detectors
The San+ range of detectors comprises dual channel colorimetric detectors, the unique matrix correction detector with automatic background correction for difficult sample matrixes, but also covers a range of detectors for I.R., U.V., fluorimetry, ISE, flame photometry, refractometers, density meters, etc.
Software
The San+ 'Flow Access' windows software package controls the complete analyser, with auto start-up, function control, and auto-scaling, pre-and post run sample dilutions, result calculation and statistics. Up to 16 channels can be handled simultaneously, with multiple samplers, and chemistries can be grouped for analysis.
The San+ is also known as San++.
Non-toxic (underway) sea water supply
A source of uncontaminated near-surface (commonly 3 to 7 m) seawater pumped continuously to shipboard laboratories on research vessels. There is typically a temperature sensor near the intake (known as the hull temperature) to provide measurements that are as close as possible to the ambient water temperature. The flow from the supply is typically directed through continuously logged sensors such as a thermosalinograph and a fluorometer. Water samples are often collected from the non-toxic supply. The system is also referred to as the underway supply.
D321A Underway Biogenic Silica samples from non-toxic supply
Originator's Protocol for Data Acquisition and Analysis
52 water samples taken from the underway pump during cruise D321A, which traversed the Extended Ellett line in the Iceland Basin. Samples were taken from the underway non-toxic supply to ensure greater resolution in areas of interest such as eddies, coccolithophore blooms or when there was no CTD cast due to bad weather conditions.
Samples for BSi were taken from the non-toxic supply pump situated at 5 m depth. Between 385 mL and 1000 mL of seawater was filtered onto 1.0 um polycarbonate membrane filters. The filters were placed in plastic vials and kept at -20 degrees C until analysis at NOC, which consisted of acidification and colorimetric analysis performed on a Skalar San+ segmented flow autoanalyser.
Instrumentation Description
Skalar San+ segmented flow autoanalyser used for analysis at NOC.
BODC Data Processing Procedures
Data received were loaded into the BODC database using established BODC data banking procedures.
The originator's parameter is mapped to a BODC parameter as below:
Originator's Parameter | Unit | Description | BODC Parameter Code | BODC Unit | Comments |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
BSi | Umol l-1 | Biogenic Silica | OPALW1UM | Umol l-1 | None |
Data Quality Report
No additional information on data quality supplied by originator.
Problem Report
No problems reported.
Particulate organic carbon (POC) and particulate organic nitrogen (PON) measurements taken from thermosalinograph bottle samples during cruise D321 (D321A)
Originator's Protocol for Data Acquisition and Analysis
A total of 53 samples were collected from the underway supply non-toxic supply with an intake of 5 m. Samples were taken to increase the number of samples collected in areas of interest such as eddies, coccolithophore blooms or when there was no CTD cast sampling due to bad weather conditions. Between 1.5 and 2 litres of seawater was filtered onto pre-ashed GF/F filters. The filters were then placed in petri dishes, wrapped in tin foil and kept at -20°C until analysis at the National Oceanography Centre Southampton using a CHN (Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen) analyser with standard procedures e.g blank corrected, calibration etc.
Note that coccolithophores (Scanning Electron Microscope), Particulate Inorganic Carbon (PIC) and Biogenic Silica (BSi) measurements from the thermosalinograph are complementary to these data as they were taken from the same sampling events.
BODC Data Processing Procedures
Data were received in an excel file and loaded into the BODC database using standard BODC data banking procedures without any changes. The following table shows how the variables were mapped to appropriate BODC parameter codes:
Originator's Parameter | Units | Description | BODC parameter code | BODC units | Comments |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Event # | - | Sampling event number | - | - | - |
Jul Day | - | Julian day | - | - | - |
Lat | Degrees decimal minutes | Laitude | - | - | - |
Lat | Decimal degrees | Latitude | - | - | - |
Long | Degrees decimal minutes | Longitude | - | - | - |
POC | mMol m-3 | Particulate organic carbon | CORGCAP1 | µMol L -1 | Equivalent units |
PON | mMol m-3 | particulate organic nitrogen | SFNTCNPP | µMol L -1 | Equivalent units |
Data Quality Report
None (BODC assessment).
Problem Report
None (BODC assessment).
Project Information
Oceans 2025 - The NERC Marine Centres' Strategic Research Programme 2007-2012
Who funds the programme?
The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) funds the Oceans 2025 programme, which was originally planned in the context of NERC's 2002-2007 strategy and later realigned to NERC's subsequent strategy (Next Generation Science for Planet Earth; NERC 2007).
Who is involved in the programme?
The Oceans 2025 programme was designed by and is to be implemented through seven leading UK marine centres. The marine centres work together in coordination and are also supported by cooperation and input from government bodies, universities and other partners. The seven marine centres are:
- National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS)
- Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML)
- Marine Biological Association (MBA)
- Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Marine Science (SAHFOS)
- Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory (POL)
- Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS)
- Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU)
Oceans2025 provides funding to three national marine facilities, which provide services to the wider UK marine community, in addition to the Oceans 2025 community. These facilities are:
- British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC), hosted at POL
- Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL), hosted at POL
- Culture Collection of Algae and Protozoa (CCAP), hosted at SAMS
The NERC-run Strategic Ocean Funding Initiative (SOFI) provides additional support to the programme by funding additional research projects and studentships that closely complement the Oceans 2025 programme, primarily through universities.
What is the programme about?
Oceans 2025 sets out to address some key challenges that face the UK as a result of a changing marine environment. The research funded through the programme sets out to increase understanding of the size, nature and impacts of these changes, with the aim to:
- improve knowledge of how the seas behave, not just now but in the future;
- help assess what that might mean for the Earth system and for society;
- assist in developing sustainable solutions for the management of marine resources for future generations;
- enhance the research capabilities and facilities available for UK marine science.
In order to address these aims there are nine science themes supported by the Oceans 2025 programme:
- Climate, circulation and sea level (Theme 1)
- Marine biogeochemical cycles (Theme 2)
- Shelf and coastal processes (Theme 3)
- Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (Theme 4)
- Continental margins and deep ocean (Theme 5)
- Sustainable marine resources (Theme 6)
- Technology development (Theme 8)
- Next generation ocean prediction (Theme 9)
- Integration of sustained observations in the marine environment (Theme 10)
In the original programme proposal there was a theme on health and human impacts (Theme 7). The elements of this Theme have subsequently been included in Themes 3 and 9.
When is the programme active?
The programme started in April 2007 with funding for 5 years.
Brief summary of the programme fieldwork/data
Programme fieldwork and data collection are to be achieved through:
- physical, biological and chemical parameters sampling throughout the North and South Atlantic during collaborative research cruises aboard NERC's research vessels RRS Discovery, RRS James Cook and RRS James Clark Ross;
- the Continuous Plankton Recorder being deployed by SAHFOS in the North Atlantic and North Pacific on 'ships of opportunity';
- physical parameters measured and relayed in near real-time by fixed moorings and ARGO floats;
- coastal and shelf sea observatory data (Liverpool Bay Coastal Observatory (LBCO) and Western Channel Observatory (WCO)) using the RV Prince Madog and RV Quest.
The data is to be fed into models for validation and future projections. Greater detail can be found in the Theme documents.
Data Activity or Cruise Information
Cruise
Cruise Name | D321 (D321A) |
Departure Date | 2007-07-24 |
Arrival Date | 2007-08-23 |
Principal Scientist(s) | John T Allen (National Oceanography Centre, Southampton) |
Ship | RRS Discovery |
Complete Cruise Metadata Report is available here
Fixed Station Information
No Fixed Station Information held for the Series
BODC Quality Control Flags
The following single character qualifying flags may be associated with one or more individual parameters with a data cycle:
Flag | Description |
---|---|
Blank | Unqualified |
< | Below detection limit |
> | In excess of quoted value |
A | Taxonomic flag for affinis (aff.) |
B | Beginning of CTD Down/Up Cast |
C | Taxonomic flag for confer (cf.) |
D | Thermometric depth |
E | End of CTD Down/Up Cast |
G | Non-taxonomic biological characteristic uncertainty |
H | Extrapolated value |
I | Taxonomic flag for single species (sp.) |
K | Improbable value - unknown quality control source |
L | Improbable value - originator's quality control |
M | Improbable value - BODC quality control |
N | Null value |
O | Improbable value - user quality control |
P | Trace/calm |
Q | Indeterminate |
R | Replacement value |
S | Estimated value |
T | Interpolated value |
U | Uncalibrated |
W | Control value |
X | Excessive difference |
SeaDataNet Quality Control Flags
The following single character qualifying flags may be associated with one or more individual parameters with a data cycle:
Flag | Description |
---|---|
0 | no quality control |
1 | good value |
2 | probably good value |
3 | probably bad value |
4 | bad value |
5 | changed value |
6 | value below detection |
7 | value in excess |
8 | interpolated value |
9 | missing value |
A | value phenomenon uncertain |
B | nominal value |
Q | value below limit of quantification |