Collaborative Research: Air/Sea Gas Exchange Studies of Carbon Dioxide, Dimethyl Sulfide, and Acetone by Eddy Correlation

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The principal investigators will conduct two research cruises to measure carbon dioxide, dimethyl sulfide, and acetone using the eddy covariance technique over a broad range of oceanographic conditions. A tropical cruise in the equatorial Pacific upwelling region will capture the moderate to low wind speed conditions characteristic of most of the world's oceans. A main goal of the Pacific cruise will be to study the increase of the gas exchange coefficient with wind speed. A high latitude North Atlantic Ocean cruise will focus on areas of high biological productivity and higher wind speeds. On the high latitude cruise the impact of phytoplankton blooms on gas exchange and the role of bubbles as a factor in gas exchange rates will be studied. These cruises will add to the current database of direct flux studies in the oceans, which is extremely small, and insufficient to rigorously characterize the variability in gas transfer coefficients as a function of wind speed, sea state, biological productivity or seasonality in the major ocean basins. The broader impacts of the research include the participation of students from various levels of education from high school interns to undergraduate and graduate students. Underrepresented students will be included through an external program. There will also be an effort made to include an undergraduate student and a high school teacher from a minority school district on a research cruise.