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The Impact of Different Gas Exchange Formulations and Wind Speed Products on Global Air-Sea CO2 Fluxes

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Book cover Transport at the Air-Sea Interface

Part of the book series: Environmental Science and Engineering ((ENVSCIENCE))

Abstract

Significant advances have been made over the last decade in estimating air-sea CO2 fluxes over the ocean by the bulk formulation that expresses the flux as the product of the gas transfer velocity and the concentration difference of aqueous CO2 over the liquid boundary layer. This has resulted in a believable global monthly climatology of air-sea CO2 fluxes over the ocean on a 4o by 5o grid [38]. It is shown here that the global air-sea CO2 fluxes are very sensitive to estimates of gas transfer velocity and the parameterization of gas transfer with wind. Wind speeds can now be resolved at sufficient temporal and spatial resolution that they should not limit the estimates, but the absolute magnitudes of winds for different wind products differ significantly. It is recommended to use satellite-derived wind products that have the appropriate resolution instead of assimilated products that often do not appropriately resolve variability on sub-daily and sub-25-km space scales. Parameterizations of gas exchange with wind differ in functional form and magnitude but the difference between the most-used quadratic relationships is about 15%. Based on current estimates of uncertainty of the air-water CO2 concentration differences, the winds, and the gas exchange-wind speed parameterization, each parameter contributes similarly to the overall uncertainty in the flux that is estimated at 25%.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. NOAA/Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway, Miami, Florida

    Rik Wanninkhof

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  1. Rik Wanninkhof
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing, University of Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 368, 69120, Heidelberg, Germany

    Christoph S. Garbe  & Bernd Jähne  & 

  2. Institute of Environmental Physics, University of Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 229, 69120, Heidelberg, Germany

    Christoph S. Garbe  & Bernd Jähne  & 

  3. Naval Research Laboratory, 4555 Overlook Avenue SW, Washington DC, 20375, USA

    Robert A. Handler

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Wanninkhof, R. (2007). The Impact of Different Gas Exchange Formulations and Wind Speed Products on Global Air-Sea CO2 Fluxes. In: Garbe, C.S., Handler, R.A., Jähne, B. (eds) Transport at the Air-Sea Interface. Environmental Science and Engineering. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-36906-6_1

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