Air-Sea Gas Exchange |
Eric Saltzman, UC Irvine Christa Marandino, UC Irvine Warren DeBruyn, Chapman University, Orange, CA We are trying to measure air-sea fluxes of carbon dioxide, dimethylsulfide, and acetone using the eddy covariance technique from ships. These gases are important in terms of their impact on atmospheric chemistry and climate: carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, dimethylsulfide as a precursor of atmospheric sulfate aerosols, and acetone as a precursor for tropospheric HOx. By simultaneously measuring the air-sea gas flux and the air-sea concentration difference of these gases, we calculate the gas transfer coefficient, or piston velocity. The three gases we measure cover a wide range of solubilities, and our goal is to use their differences to better understand mechanisms controlling air-sea gas exchange. We made 4 cruises on the R/V Knorr (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) totaling 52 days at sea: January 2006 from Manzanillo, Mexico to Puntas Arenas, Chile (21 days); April 2007 from Woods Hole, Massachusetts, to Bridgeport, Barbados (7 days); May 2007 from Barbados to Reykjavik, Iceland (14 days); and July 2007 from Iceland back to Woods Hole, Massachusetts (10 days). This research supported by the National Science Foundation awards 0426314 (9/04-9/07) and 0851407 (5/09-5/12). Publications Please refer to the Publications page. Search for the keyphrase "air-sea gas exchange" |