This Small Business Technology Transfer Phase I project is directed towards developing a compact, unattended sensing module for shipboard or moored use, to measure the carbon dioxide concentration (pCO2) of the surface ocean. There remains large scientific uncertainty in the quantitative evaluation of the ocean as a sink for anthropogenically produced (excess) carbon dioxide emissions, a leading greenhouse gas (U.S. GCRP, 1999). At present, despite significant large scale programs such as the NSF and DOE supported JGOFS and WOCE studies of the past decade, the observational oceanographic database is limited in space and time. Current research ship based measurements obtained by discrete water sampling techniques are expensive, require highly skilled scientific personnel and are necessarily limited in their spatiotemporal resolution. The sensor system proposed here is needed to allow largely unattended deployment on a range of at-sea platforms, to greatly extend the global monitoring effort.
Potential Commercial Applications of the Research. While the measurement of oceanic carbonate systems parameters has been regarded as a governmental agency or academic research concern, societal and socio-economic factors (e.g. the recent Kyoto Protocol) place great current value on their understanding by an increasing range of environmental agencies and oceanographic researchers both nationally and internationally. Demonstration of an accurate, compact pCO2 sensor will broaden the commercial market for this critical environmental measurement.
