From the Canary Islands to Trieste: the ATL2MED mission to better understand the CO₂ cycle

CO₂ exchanges at the ocean–atmosphere interface vary across time and space; understanding this variability is essential, as carbon dioxide plays a key role in regulating the planet’s global temperature. This is the goal of the ATL2MED mission, which—thanks to cutting-edge scientific instrumentation—has delivered new observations of CO₂ fluxes in a still poorly studied area between the eastern Atlantic and the western Mediterranean.

The main outcomes of the project, carried out between 2019 and 2020, are summarized in a recent study published in Frontiers in Marine Science. The publication, focused on physical and biogeochemical processes, follows a 2024 study centered on quality control and the maintenance of high data standards, which appeared in Earth System Science Data. Both studies were led by the National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics (OGS) and involved institutions across Europe. In Italy, contributions came from the Institute of Marine Sciences (CNR-ISMAR), the Institute for the Study of Anthropogenic Impacts and Sustainability in the Marine Environment (CNR-IAS), and the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.