Goals of the survey were to estimate the meridional transport of inorganic carbon in a manner analogous to the estimation of the transport of oceanic heat and to build a database suitable for carbon cycle modeling and the estimation of anthropogenic CO₂ increase in the oceans. The CO₂ survey took advantage of the sampling opportunities provided by the WHP cruises during this period. The final data set is expected to cover approximately 23,000 stations from 42 WOCE cruises.

DOE sponsored CO₂ measurement operations and continues to sponsor CDIACs data management activities, which include data archival, data checking and evaluation, preparation of data documentation, and data dissemination. All CO₂-related data are checked before documentation and distribution. Carbon and hydrographic data are open to public through CDIAC Ocean Data web page and available in different formats. CDIAC provides the data management support to the Climate Variability (CLIVAR) Repeat Hydrography Section Program which began in 2003.

CDIAC provides data management support for the GLobal Ocean Data Analysis Project (GLODAP). GLODAP is a cooperative effort of investigators funded for synthesis and modeling projects through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), DOE, and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Cruises conducted as part of the WOCE, JGOFS, and the NOAA Ocean-Atmosphere Carbon Exchange Study (OACES) over the decade of the 90s have generated oceanographic data of unparalleled quality and quantity.

Most of the data have been reported to national archive facilities but have not been integrated into an internally consistent global data set. GLODAP will compile that data set and examine the global distribution and inventories of oxygen, nutrients, natural and anthropogenic carbon species, natural and bomb-produced radiocarbon, and ¹³C. These estimates will be used to infer nutrient re mineralization ratios (Redfield ratios) and the rate of anthropogenic CO₂, ¹³C, and bomb ¹⁴C uptake in the oceans. These estimates provide an important benchmark for comparison with future observational studies. They also provide tools for the direct evaluation of numerical ocean carbon models.

CDIAC provides data management support for the CARINA (CARbon dioxide IN the Atlantic ocean) International Project which emerged from a workshop on "CO₂ in the Atlantic Ocean," held in June 1999 in Delmenhorst, Germany.

The CARINA objectives are:

• to bring together research groups that measure CO₂ in the Atlantic Ocean;
• to create an inventory of CO₂ measurements carried out in the Atlantic Ocean;
• to make available unpublished data to the data contributors (data access);
• to form working groups that cooperate on various aspects of the CO₂ system in the Atlantic; and
• to exchange information concerning CO₂ research in the Atlantic.

CDIAC also plays a major role in the CO₂ data management for the North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES) Working Group 17 (WG-17). The main goal of the WG-17 is to work with the International Data Centers [Japan Oceanographic Data Center (JODC), National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC), CDIAC, Marine Environmental Data Service (MEDS), et al.] to complete an International North Pacific data set for CO₂ and CO₂-related parameters and to encourage PICES countries (Japan, South Korea, China, Canada, Russia, and United States) and non-PICES countries to contribute data and information on data to the PICES data inventory.