Acronym: OCB-004
Program: Ocean Carbon & Biogeochemistry [OCB]
URL: Project Web Site
Start date: 2007-10
End date: 2010-09
Geolocation: North Atlantic
Description:

from the NSF proposal abstract

The problem of quantifying the rate of gas flux across the air-water interface is one of the central questions of oceanography and is critical in the context of greenhouse gases and ocean-atmosphere budgets. The large uncertainty surrounding the flux of carbon dioxide (CO2) between the atmosphere and ocean prevent us from determining the partitioning of the sink of anthropogenic CO2 between the ocean and the terrestrial biosphere. This uncertainty also limits the ability to realistically model future atmospheric CO2 levels. The International SOLAS (Surface Ocean - Lower Atmosphere Study) science plan and implementation strategy highlights the need for an improved understanding of gas exchange. One of the stated goal of the SOLAS program to develop quantitative understanding of processes responsible for air-sea exchange of mass, momentum and energy to permit accurate calculation of regional and global gas and aerosol fluxes. This requires establishing the dependence of these interfacial transfer mechanisms on physical, biological and chemical factors within the atmospheric and oceanic boundary layers.

The investigator in this project will participate in the recently funded UK-SOLAS "Deep Ocean Gas Exchange Experiment", DOGEE. As part of this field experiment, two deliberate dual tracer patches will be released in close proximity to each other in the North Atlantic. One will be "labeled" with a surfactant in order to mimic the role of surface organic slicks in modifying gas transfer. The funded UK ship-based efforts will be enhanced with high resolution Lagrangian measurements of the air-sea interface. Specifically two Air-Sea Interaction Spar (ASIS) buoys, one in each patch, will be deployed to measure direct fluxes along with controlling surface physical processes (wind speed, wind stress, stability, surface waves, upper ocean turbulence and mixing, and key parameters governing mixed layer CO2 dynamics). In addition, a newly developed Air-Sea Interaction Profiler will be deployed to provide thermal and shear measurements in the very near surface. With these measurements, gas transfer process related specifically to surfactant effects, and to high wind processes will be better understood.

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More information about project Near-surface controls of air-sea CO2 exchange
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