U.S. Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (U.S. JGOFS) The U.S. Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (U.S. JGOFS), conceived in 1984 and organized as a major ocean research program shortly thereafter, has conducted field and modeling investigations of the global ocean carbon cycle and the processes that regulate it for a decade and a half. It has brought together biological, chemical, physical and geological oceanographers and modelers in a multidisciplinary investigation of the pools and fluxes of carbon and associated biogenic elements in the ocean. U.S. JGOFS is a component of the international Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS), launched in 1987 under the aegis of the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR). Designated a core project of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) two years later, JGOFS has involved scientists from more than 30 countries in field and modeling studies. Its research program included national and international process studies conducted in many ocean basins, time-series programs and a global survey of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the ocean. The U.S. JGOFS research program comprised four basin-scale process studies, two long-term time-series programs, participation in a global survey of (CO2) and a synthesis and modeling project. This CD-ROM contains the data acquired during the four U.S. JGOFS process studies, conducted in the North Atlantic, the equatorial Pacific, the Arabian Sea and the Southern Ocean. Data from other components of U.S. JGOFS will be published in future volumes. U.S. JGOFS Process Study Data The U.S. portion of the North Atlantic Bloom Experiment (NABE) was conducted during 1989, at three general locations: 33°N, 47°N and 59°N at 20°W. The U.S. effort included three process-oriented cruises, long-term deployments of sediment trap arrays and aircraft observations. The U.S. JGOFS Equatorial Pacific Process Study (EqPac) included four process-oriented intensive survey cruises (February-October 1992) and a benthic processes cruise (November 1992) from 12°N to 12°S at 140°W and long-term deployments of moored current meter and meteorological systems and sediment trap arrays. U.S. participation in the Arabian Sea Process Study comprised 17 cruises between September 1994 and January 1996. Repeat surveys were conducted along two NW to SE sections between 57° and 69°E, north of 10°N in the northwest Indian Ocean. The U.S. effort also included long-term deployments of sediment traps, current meter and meteorological arrays as well as aircraft and satellite observations. The U.S. Southern Ocean Joint Global Ocean Flux Study, also known as Antarctic Environment and Southern Ocean Process Study (AESOPS), began in August 1996 and continued through March 1998. The U.S. effort was focused in the Ross Sea continental shelf region and the southwest Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean, spanning the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) near 170°W. Sampling was conducted from eleven cruises which included deployments of moorings and sediment trap arrays.
	U.S. JGOFS has been supported primarily by the U.S. National Science Foundation with additional support from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Department of Energy and the Office of Naval Research.