Atmospheric CO₂ Record from Continuous Measurements at Jubany Station, Antarctica

Monthly Graphic   Daily Graphic    Digital Data

Authors

Luigi Ciattaglia and Claudio Rafanelli
CNR-IFA Area Ricerca Tor Vergata 00133
Rome, Italy

Horacio Rodriguez and Jorge Araujo
DNA-IAA
Cerrito 1248
1010 Buenos Aires, Argentina

Location

The Italian PNRA (National Research Program in Antarctica) began continuous atmospheric carbon dioxide measurements at Jubany in 1994. The laboratory at Jubany Station is operated year-round by the DNA (Argentine Antarctic Department) through an agreement with PNRA. The Antarctic station at Jubany (62° 14'S, 58° 40'W) is situated on King George Island, in the South Shetland archipelago north of the Antarctic Penisula. The laboratory is situated at an elevation of 15 m.s.l. on the SE slope of Potter Bay. The bay, which has a maximum width around 1 km, is surrounded by permanent glaciers except the sector where the base lies. In some years the sea stretch of the bay freezes for 2-3 months.

Jubany Station, Antarctica
62° 14' S, 58° 40' W
15 m right MSL

Period of Record

March 1994 - December 2007

The measuring system is based on a Siemens U5 NDIR analyzer equipped with a serial interface controlled by software running on a PC. Atmospheric water vapor and humidity contained in the cylinders are removed by passing air for approximately one minute through a U glass tube placed in a cryogenic trap (-70°C). The air intake is located on a 10 m-high mast situated 40 m away from the laboratory building. The Jubany Laboratory has now at its disposal a set of 6 CO₂-in-air stations whose concentration, versus the World Meteorological Organizations's standard scale, was determined at the United States' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Global Monitoring Division of the Earth System Research Laboratory. The analyzer scale is automatically recalibrated every 3 hours by using two working standards (zero and span) which differ by 20-25 ppm. The accuracy achieved in the calibration phase and in the atmospheric CO₂ measurement permits reporting to ±0.1 ppm.

Trends

On the basis of annual averages calculated from monthly averages, CO₂ levels at Jubany have risen from 356.75 in 1994 to 381.05 in 2007. The reduced and poorly defined concentration peak of 1997-1998 was also observed at other Antarctic stations in the WMO Global Atmospheric Watch network, and may have been caused by any one or a combination of several things, including sea surface temperature anomalies, air temperature anomalies, and changes in general atmospheric circulation. Among all the factors affecting the atmospheric CO₂ concentration the most convincing cause seems related to the 1997-1998 El Niño and subsequent La Niña episodes. That hypothesis is based on the behavior of SOI and CO₂ concentrations at several Antarctic and non-Antarctic sites and from cross correlations between the two parameters.

References

• Anav, A., L. Ciattaglia, and C. Rafanelli. 1999. Was El Niño 1997-98 responsible for the anomalous CO₂ trend in the Antarctic atmosphere? pp. 375-85 in Conference Proceedings of the VIII Workshop on the Antarctic Atmosphere. Volume 69. Bologna, Italy.
• Ciattaglia, L. 1997. First 3 Years of Atmospheric CO₂ Concentration Measurements at Jubany Station: Characteristics, Growth Rate, and Relationship with the Origins of Air Masses. In Conference Proceedings of the VII Workshop on the Antarctic Atmosphere. Bologna, Italy.
• Ciattaglia, L., and T. Colombo. 1997. CO₂ growth rate may have been caused Some Characteristics of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide as Measured in the Antarctic Peninsula Area. In Abstracts of the 5th International Carbon Dioxide Conference. Cairns, Australia.
• Ciattaglia, L., A. Guerrini, and T. Colombo. 1995. A New CO₂ Continuous Monitoring Station in Antarctica: Jubany (South Shetland). In Proceedings of the WMO Expert Meeting on Carbon Dioxide Concentration and Isotopic Measurement Technique. Boulder, Colorado, USA.
• Ciattaglia, L., T. Colombo, and K.A. Masarie. 1999. Continuous measurements of atmospheric CO₂ at Jubany Station, Antarctica. Tellus 51B:713-21.
• Ciattaglia, L., A. Guerrini, T. Colombo, and P. Chamard. 1995. Some Characteristics of the Atmospheric CO₂ Concentration as Measured at Jubany (Antarctica) During the First 18 Months of Operation. In Conference Proceedings of the VI Workshop on the Antarctic Atmosphere. Florence, Italy.
• Ciattaglia, L., P. Chamard, T. Colombo, and R. Santaguida. 1997. Italian Greenhouse Gas Programs in the Mediterranean Region and in Antarctica. In Proceedings of the WMO Expert Meeting on Carbon Dioxide Concentration and Isotopic Measurement Technique. Melbourne, Australia.
• Ciattaglia, L., C. Rafanelli, J. Araujo, and H. Rodriguez, 2008. "Long-term measurements of the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration measured at Jubany Station indicate a relationship with El Niño" Berichte zur Polar und Meeresforschung, AWI Bremerhaven, 571, pp. 390-396.

Revised February 2008