Contribution of Sea-State Dependent Bubbles to Air-Sea Carbon Dioxide Fluxes
Type | Article | ||||||||
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Date | 2020-05 | ||||||||
Language | English | ||||||||
Author(s) | Reichil B. G.1, 2, Deike L.3, 4 | ||||||||
Affiliation(s) | 1 : Princeton Univ, Program Atmospner & Ocean Sci, Princeton, NJ 08544 USA. 2 : NOAA, Geophys Fluid Dynam Lab, Princeton, NJ 08540 USA. 3 : Princeton Univ, Dept Mech & Aerosp Engn, Princeton, NJ 08544 USA. 4 : Princeton Univ, Princeton Environm Inst, Princeton, NJ 08544 USA. |
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Source | Geophysical Research Letters (0094-8276) (Amer Geophysical Union), 2020-05 , Vol. 47 , N. 9 , P. e2020GL087267 (12p.) | ||||||||
DOI | 10.1029/2020GL087267 | ||||||||
WOS© Times Cited | 25 | ||||||||
Abstract | Breaking surface ocean waves produce bubbles that are important for air-sea gas exchanges, particularly during high winds. In this study we estimate air-sea CO2 fluxes globally using a new approach that considers the surface wave contribution to gas fluxes. We estimate that 40% of the net air-sea CO2 flux is via bubbles, with annual, seasonal, and regional variability. When compared to traditional gas-flux parameterization methods that consider the wind speed alone, we find high-frequency (daily to weekly) differences in the predicted gas flux using the sea-state dependent method at spatial scales related to atmospheric weather (10 to 100 km). Seasonal net differences in the air-sea CO2 flux due to the sea-state dependence can exceed 20%, with the largest values associated with North Atlantic and North Pacific winter storms. These results confirm that bubbles are important for global gas-flux dynamics and that sea-state dependent parameterizations may improve performance of global coupled models. |
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