Sea surface carbon dioxide at the Georgia time series site (2006-2007): Air-sea flux and controlling processes

•The first full annual record of CO2 by MAPCO2 in the South Atlantic Bight.•Time series CO2 controls were quantitatively identified using a 1-D model.•River-influenced coastal system was vulnerable to terrestrial inputs.•River inputs can induce CO2 interannual variability.•Temporal under-sampling can greatly bias estimates of air-sea CO2 flux and NCP.

Carbon dioxide partial pressure (pCO2) in surface seawater was continuously recorded every three hours from 18 July 2006 through 31 October 2007 using a moored autonomous pCO2 (MAPCO2) system deployed on the Gray's Reef buoy off the coast of Georgia, USA. Surface water pCO2 (average 373 ± 52 μatm) showed a clear seasonal pattern, undersaturated with respect to the atmosphere in cold months and generally oversaturated in warm months. High temporal resolution observations revealed important events not captured in previous ship-based observations, such as sporadically occurring biological CO2 uptake during April-June 2007. In addition to a qualitative analysis of the primary drivers of pCO2 variability based on property regressions, we quantified contributions of temperature, air-sea exchange, mixing, and biological processes to monthly pCO2 variations using a 1-D mass budget model. Although temperature played a dominant role in the annual cycle of pCO2, river inputs especially in the wet season, biological respiration in peak summer, and biological production during April-June 2007 also substantially influenced seawater pCO2. Furthermore, sea surface pCO2 was higher in September-October 2007 than in September-October 2006, associated with increased river inputs in fall 2007. On an annual basis this site was a moderate atmospheric CO2 sink, and was autotrophic as revealed by monthly mean net community production (NCP) in the mixed layer. If the sporadic short productive events during April-May 2007 were missed by the sampling schedule, one would conclude erroneously that the site is heterotrophic. While previous ship-based pCO2 data collected around this buoy site agreed with the buoy CO2 data on seasonal scales, high resolution buoy observations revealed that the cruise-based surveys undersampled temporal variability in coastal waters, which could greatly bias the estimates of air-sea CO2 fluxes or annual NCP, and even produce contradictory results.