Direct covariance measurement of CO2 gas transfer velocity during the 2008 Southern Ocean Gas Exchange Experiment: Wind speed dependency ...

• Main Authors: Edson, J. B., Fairall, C. W., Bariteau, L., Zappa, Christopher J., Cifuentes-Lorenzen, A., McGillis, Wade R., Pezoa, S., Hare, J. E., Helmig, D.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Columbia University 2011
• Subjects: Ocean-atmosphere interaction > Measurement; Atmospheric carbon dioxide > Measurement; Winds > Speeds; Analysis of covariance; Oceanography; FOS: Earth and related environmental sciences; Mathematics; FOS: Mathematics; Atmospheric chemistry; Southern Ocean
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.7916/d8k937cc; https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D8K937CC

Direct measurements of air-sea heat, momentum, and mass (including CO2, DMS, and water vapor) fluxes using the direct covariance method were made over the open ocean from the NOAA R/V Ronald H. Brown during the Southern Ocean Gas Exchange (SO GasEx) program. Observations of fluxes and the physical processes associated with driving air-sea exchange are key components of SO GasEx. This paper focuses on the exchange of CO2 and the wind speed dependency of the transfer velocity, k, used to model the CO2 flux between the atmosphere and ocean. A quadratic dependence of k on wind speed based on dual tracer experiments is most frequently encountered in the literature. However, in recent years, bubble-mediated enhancement of k, which exhibits a cubic relationship with wind speed, has emerged as a key issue for flux parameterization in high-wind regions. Therefore, a major question addressed in SO GasEx is whether the transfer velocities obey a quadratic or cubic relationship with wind speed. After significant ...