The Surface Ocean CO₂ Atlas (SOCAT; www.socat.info) – a synthesis activity by the international marine carbon research community with more than 100 contributors - has just released its Version 4 product! SOCATv4 has 18.5 million quality-controlled, surface ocean fCO₂ (fugacity of carbon dioxide) observations with an accuracy of better than 5 μatm from 1957 to 2015 for the global oceans and coastal seas. It is also the first annual release using automated data upload.

Automation of data upload and initial data checks speeds up data submission and allows annual releases of SOCAT from version 4 onwards. SOCAT enables quantification of the ocean carbon sink and ocean acidification and evaluation of ocean biogeochemical models. SOCAT represents a milestone in research coordination, data access, biogeochemical and climate research and in informing policy. You can obtain further details on SOCATv4 from the attached poster handout.

Figure 1: Data flow upon SOCAT automation from data upload, via submission to quality control and release of synthesis products.

To download the synthesis and gridded products of SOCATv4, please navigate to the 4^th button on the left hand side of www.socat.info site. Next week the site will also provide access to the online viewers for version 4, to be followed by access to individual data set files.

Please, follow the SOCAT Fair Data Use Statement by generously acknowledging the contribution of SOCAT scientists by invitation to co-authorship, especially for data providers in regional studies.

Also note the key dates for the next annual release: 

• Submission of data for version 5 ends 15 January 2017.
• Quality control for version 5 ends 31 March 2017.

IOCCP lead the marine biogeochemistry element of the Report which includes all climate-relevant observing capabilities in all three domains globally.

This report (360 pages, 5.5 MB) entitled Status of the Global Observing System for Climate responds to an invitation by the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at the thirty third session of the UNFCCC Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) in Cancún, Mexico, in 2010.

The report has been completed under the overall guidance of the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) Steering Committee with contributions from several panel members and external experts including IOCCP SSG members and associated experts.

The Report assesses the progress made against the actions set out in the GCOS Implementation Plan for the Global Observing System for Climate in Support of the UNFCCC (IP 2010) and it has been submitted to the UNFCCC secretariat in October 2015 for consideration by the Parties at the 43rd session of SBSTA, to be held in conjunction with the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties, in Paris, France in December
2015.

This Status Report does not provide actions or plans to address gaps, deficiencies or additional requirements that have been identified: this is the role of the new GCOS Implementation Plan being developed for release and submission to the UNFCCC in 2016. IOCCP has a major role to play there as almost revolutionary progress was made in our observational capacity in terms of marine biogeochemistry and strategic utilization of these technological developments needs to be structured and aligned with the rest of global climate observing system.

One way to get involved in this process could be through active participation in conference Global Climate Observation: the Road to the Future  which will be held from 2-4 March 2016 at the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam, Netherlands to allow producers and users of climate observations and other stakeholders the opportunity to discuss the current monitoring of the Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) and to highlight possible new areas for ECVs. These discussions will provide a key input into the new GCOS Implementation Plan .     

The Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network Executive Council and the Organizing Committee would like to invite you to participate in this focused workshop following the 4th International Symposium on Oceans in a High CO₂ World. 

You can find the workshop agenda here.

Please also visit the workshop webpage at http://www.highco2-iv.org/workshop-goa-on for all the relevant details including background information, registration procedures, program, travel support and more.

The Organizing Committee would like to thank all our sponsors for helping us make this workshop a reality!

Hope to see many of you in Hobart!

Prof. Fei Chai, University of Maine, USA

Prof. Minhan Dai, Xiamen University, China

Prof. Sam Dupont, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Dr. Richard Feely, NOAA-PMEL, USA

Dr. Kirsten Isensee, Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, UNESCO

Dr. Libby Jewett, NOAA Ocean Acidification Program Director, USA

Dr. Wajih Naqvi, CSIR-National Institution of Oceanography, India

Dr. Jan Newton, University of Washington, USA

Dr. Maciej Telszewski, IOCCP Director, SCOR and IOC-UNESCO

Dr. Bronte Tilbrook, CSIRO, Australia

Dr. Phil Williamson, NERC/University of East Anglia, UK

"Sustained ocean observing for the next decade"

A combined GO-SHIP/Argo/IOCCP conference on physical and biogeochemical measurements of the water column

14-18 September 2015

Galway, Ireland

We hope to see many of you in Galway!

The report from this activity is available for download HERE, and can also be viewed online below.

The oceanographic community has continued to improve comparability of nutrient data from the world's oceans in many ways, including through 3 international inter-laboratory comparison studies since 2003 and the development of nutrient reference materials (RMs). However, adequate comparability and traceability of nutrient data have not yet been achieved.

Certified reference materials, CRMs, for nutrients in seawater that cover wide range of nutrients concentration became available in 2014. IOCCP and Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) co-organized an inter-laboratory comparison study of nutrients in seawater using: four lots of recently certified reference materials (CRMs) prepared by KANSO, Japan; three CRMs by National Metrology Institute of Japan; one recently developed reference material (RM) from the Korean Institute of Standards (KIOST), and the silicate stock solution provided by the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ).

A set of samples was distributed to all 71 participating laboratories from 28 countries. Results from 54 participating laboratories were collected as of 30 June 2015 deadline. A few more participants informed the organizers about short delays in data analysis. Detailed results are described in the report.

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SOCAT version 3 was released on 7 September 2015 during the

SOCAT-SOCOM community event event

preceding the SOLAS Open Science Conference in Kiel, Germany.

SOCAT version 3 contains 14.5 million fCO₂ data from 3630 data sets for global oceans and coastal sease. The decadal distribution of data is shown on the figure below. This release for the first time includes well-calibrated sensor data.

The data are available for download as recalculated fCO₂ in individual cruise files, as concatenated synthesis files, and as gridded fCO₂ means. In addition to the recalculated fCO₂ data, the original CO₂ data, as reported by the data provider, are available in the individual cruise files. All data sets and data products are citable using DOIs (digital object identifiers). Interactive, online Data Viewers enable easy interrogation and visualization of the SOCAT products. The SOCAT products can be downloaded in a variety of formats, including in Ocean Data View format.

The SOCAT website provides access to all version 3 products and tools as downloadable files and interactive data viewers.

 Decadal distribution of quality controlled surface water fCO₂ observations in SOCAT version 3.

Data submission deadline for SOCAT version 4 is 31 January 2016

Also for the first time data generators are enabled to submit their data and metadata through an automated submission system. Please contact the SOCAT team at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for details.

SOCAT impact and scientific findings

SOCAT represents a milestone in research coordination, data access, biogeochemical and climate research and in informing policy. SOCAT data was used in more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications since the release of version 1 in 2011. Subjects include year-to-year variability in the global ocean carbon sink, magnitude of carbon sink in coastal and marginal seas, evaluation of CMIP models and ocean acidification research. Go to SOCAT website for the most up-to-date list of these publications.  SOCAT also informs the annual Global Carbon Budget.

We hope that you will (continue to) participate in regular SOCAT releases as data provider, data quality controller or data user!

Enjoy SOCAT!

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has published its annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin on 9 September 2014. The bulletin reports on atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases remaining in the atmosphere after the emitted gases go through a complex system of interactions between the atmosphere, the terrestrial biosphere and the ocean. For the first time, the bulletin includes data on ocean acidification of the seas caused by carbon dioxide. IOCCP leaders, Toste Tanhua (IOCCP Chair), Laura Lorenzoni (IOCCP expert for time series observations) and Masao Ishii (IOCCP expert for ocean interior observations) co-authored the OA section with colleagues from IAEA.

The Bulletin attracted significant media attention worldwide. The original WMO press release can be accessed here.

The Global Carbon Project has published the Global Carbon Budget 2013. As usual you can read the highlights of new findings, look at the Power Point presentation with extended graphical analysis, download original paper, look at data sources and more.

This year the GCP has launched the new Global Carbon Atlas, an online interactive platform with distinctive tools to delivery carbon information to i) educators and the broader public, ii) policy makers, NGOS, and the broad corporate community involved in climate change discussions, and iii) the research community. Your feedback on the usefulness, ways to improve it, and involvement will be highly appreciated!

Finally, a new consortium of scientists and institutions under the umbrella of the Global Carbon Project has recently released a new synthesis of the Global Methane Budget and trends of natural and anthropogenic sources and sinks over the past three decades. As with the Carbon Budget, you will find a summary of highlights and an extended visual aids for download from the GCP website.