Winter weather controls net influx of atmospheric CO on the north-west European shelf.

Shelf seas play an important role in the global carbon cycle, absorbing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO) and exporting carbon (C) to the open ocean and sediments. The magnitude of these processes is poorly constrained, because observations are typically interpolated over multiple years. Here, we used 298500 observations of CO fugacity (fCO) from a single year (2015), to estimate the net influx of atmospheric CO as 26.

Nutrient, pigment, suspended matter and turbidity measurements in the Belgian part of the North Sea.

Through regular sampling surveys, the Flanders Marine Institute is generating long term data series for the Belgian coastal water and sand bank systems, a designated site in the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) network. The data series is built on sampling activities initiated in 2002, but gradually upgraded and extended in the framework of the LifeWatch marine observatory and the Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS) participation. Nine nearshore stations are sampled monthly, with additional seasonal sampling of eight offshore stations.