Ocean bubbles under high wind conditions – Part 2: Bubble size distributions and implications for models of bubble dynamics

• Main Authors: Czerski, Helen, Brooks, Ian M, Gunn, Steve, Pascal, Robin, Matei, Adrian, Blomquist, Byron
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus GmbH 2022
• Subjects: North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10147798/1/os-18-587-2022.pdf; https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10147798/

Bubbles formed by breaking waves in the open ocean influence many surface processes but are poorly understood. We report here on detailed bubble size distributions measured during the High Wind Speed Gas Exchange Study (HiWinGS) in the North Atlantic, during four separate storms with hourly averaged wind speeds from 10–27 m s−1. The measurements focus on the deeper plumes formed by advection downwards (at 2 m depth and below), rather than the initial surface distributions. Our results suggest that bubbles reaching a depth of 2 m have already evolved to form a heterogeneous but statistically stable population in the top 1–2 m of the ocean. These shallow bubble populations are carried downwards by coherent near-surface circulations; bubble evolution at greater depths is consistent with control by local gas saturation, surfactant coatings and pressure. We find that at 2 m the maximum bubble radius observed has a very weak wind speed dependence and is too small to be explained by simple buoyancy arguments. For void fractions greater than 10−6, bubble size distributions at 2 m can be fitted by a two-slope power law (with slopes of −0.3 for bubbles of radius <80 µm and −4.4 for larger sizes). If normalised by void fraction, these distributions collapse to a very narrow range, implying that the bubble population is relatively stable and the void fraction is determined by bubbles spreading out in space rather than changing their size over time. In regions with these relatively high void fractions we see no evidence for slow bubble dissolution. When void fractions are below 10−6, the peak volume of the bubble size distribution is more variable and can change systematically across a plume at lower wind speeds, tracking the void fraction. Relatively large bubbles (80 µm in radius) are observed to persist for several hours in some cases, following periods of very high wind. Our results suggest that local gas supersaturation around the bubble plume may have a strong influence on bubble lifetime, but significantly, the gas ...