Trans Carrier Equipment Overview

Instrument on Trans CarrierThe equipment on Trans Carrier.

At the cargo vessel Trans Carrier the first automatic CO2 measurement system (Neill system) was installed in 2005 and this instrument ran until 2009, with exception of the year 2006 when the CO2 measurements were performed at the sister ship Norcliff. In 2017 a completely new CO2 system delivered from General Oceanics was installed. The system consists of an equilibrator through which seawater is pumped with a flow of about 3L/min. A spiral nozzle forms a regular spray, so that the water and the gas phase achieve equilibriums fast. The gas phase is then pumped through a NDIR analyzer, where the mole fraction of carbon dioxide is measured. From this, the fCO2 is calculated by using the respective sea surface temperature and salinity. In a regular rhythm the system switches to measure four different calibrations gases. Besides the fugacity of carbon dioxide, also the sea surface temperature and the sea surface salinity are measured, and the salinity is determined by a thermosalinograph (SBE45). The water intake is at 4 m depth.