12 years of continuous atmospheric O.sub.2, CO.sub.2 and APO data from Weybourne Atmospheric Observatory in the United Kingdom

• Published in: Earth system science data 2023-11, Vol.15 (11), p.5183
• Main Authors: Adcock, Karina E, Pickers, Penelope A, Manning, Andrew C, Forster, Grant L, Fleming, Leigh S, Barningham, Thomas, Wilson, Philip A, Kozlova, Elena A, Hewitt, Marica, Etchells, Alex J, Macdonald, Andy J
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Carbon cycle (Biogeochemistry); Measuring instruments
• ISSN: 1866-3508

We present a 12-year time series of continuous atmospheric measurements of O.sub.2 and CO.sub.2 at the Weybourne Atmospheric Observatory in the United Kingdom. These measurements are combined into the term atmospheric potential oxygen (APO), a tracer that is invariant to terrestrial biosphere fluxes. The CO.sub.2, O.sub.2 and APO datasets discussed are hourly averages between May 2010 and December 2021. We include details of our measurement system and calibration procedures, and describe the main long-term and seasonal features of the time series. The 2 min repeatability of the measurement system is approximately ±3 per meg for O.sub.2 and approximately ±0.005 ppm for CO.sub.2 . The time series shows average long-term trends of 2.40 ppm yr.sup.-1 (2.38 to 2.42) for CO.sub.2, -24.0 per meg yr.sup.-1 for O.sub.2 (-24.3 to -23.8) and -11.4 per meg yr.sup.-1 (-11.7 to -11.3) for APO, over the 12-year period. The average seasonal cycle peak-to-peak amplitudes are 16 ppm for CO.sub.2, 134 per meg for O.sub.2 and 68 per meg for APO. The diurnal cycles of CO.sub.2 and O.sub.2 vary considerably between seasons. The datasets are publicly available at