Atmospheric CO2 Record from In Situ Measurements at Amsterdam Island (1980-1995)

• Main Authors: Gaudry, A., Kazan, V., Monfray, P.
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Environmental System Science Data Infrastructure for a Virtual Ecosystem; Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States) 1996
• Subjects: 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; New Zealand; Scripps; Uras; Amsterdam Island
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.3334/cdiac/atg.013; https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1394176/

Until 1993 air samples were collected continuously through an air intake located at the top of a tower, 9 m above ground and 65 m above mean sea level. Since 1994, the intake has been situated 20 m above ground and 76 m above mean sea level. The tower is located at the north-northwest end of the island on the edge of a 55 m cliff. The air is dried by means of a cryogenic water trap at -60°C. Until 1990, determinations of CO2 were made by using successively two Hartmann-Braun URAS 2T nondispersive infrared (NDIR) analyzers. Since 1991, CO2 determinations have been made using a Siemens ULTRAMAT 5F NDIR. Standard gases in use from October 1980 to December of 1984 were CO2-in-N2 mixtures certified by Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO). The N2 scale was corrected for the carrier gas effect to obtain the air scale (WMO mole fraction scale). In 1985, CO2-in-air mixtures expressed in the 1985 WMO mole fraction in air scale were introduced. In 1990, a new series of 12 primary standard gases were gravimetrically prepared, then linearly adjusted at the laboratory and checked several times (i.e., 1990, 1992, and 1993) through intercalibrations with DSIR in New Zealand and NOAA/CMDL, which both used the 1985 mole fraction scale. The agreement was always better than 0.1 ppm (Monfray et al. 1992). Since 1993, the 1993 mole fraction scale has been used thanks to a new series of 10 cylinders provided by SIO.