Autonomous observing platform CO2 data shed new light on the Southern Ocean carbon cycle

While the number of surface ocean CO2 partial pressure (pCO(2)) measurements has soared the recent decades, the Southern Ocean remains undersampled. Williams et al. (2017) now present pCO(2) estimates based on data from pH-sensor equipped Bio-Argo floats, which have been measuring in the Southern Ocean since 2014. The authors demonstrate the utility of these data for understanding the carbon cycle in this region, which has a large influence on the distribution of CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere. Biogeochemical sensors deployed on autonomous platforms hold the potential to shape our view of the ocean carbon cycle in the coming decades.