Measurements of the total CO2 content of sea water, together with pCO2 and alkalinity will be made as part of the U.S. component of the JGOFS North Atlantic Pilot Study. The principal tool will be gas extraction - coulometry, with titrimetric measurements of alkalinity and gas chromatographic measurements of pCO2. The method has a precision of 1 part in 2000, and thus can examine natural cycles in the ocean for carbon with much the same resolution as in classical studies of oxygen cycling. This opens the way to balancing the equations describing fundamental processes in the ocean. In these cruises the time changes in CO2 taking place through the spring season, possibly down to the resolution of diurnal cycles will be examined. These data will be added to the JGOFS data set.
