Air-sea gas exchange

The Air-Sea Exchange group focuses on the processes that control gas and particle exchange between the ocean and atmosphere, which has profound implications for our environment and the Earth’s climate. There are many complex processes involved in air-sea gas exchange and understanding them is critical to future climate change scenarios.

Air-sea exchange is important for the cycling of gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, dimethylsulfide and ammonia. These compounds are important for our climate because they are either greenhouse gases or influence the production and growth of particles in the atmosphere that reflect solar radiation away from the Earth’s surface.

We also study the air-sea exchange processes relevant to ozone, particles and volatile organic compounds, all of which are relevant to our understanding of how the ocean influences atmospheric processing and air pollution.

The ASE group works on many of the challenges highlighted in the Surface Ocean-Lower Atmosphere Study (SOLAS) project overview schematic.

Our big research questions are:

• What are the processes at the ocean/atmosphere interface that control the air-sea transfer of heat, gases and particles?
• What are the key biological and chemical processes in the surface ocean that control the concentrations of climate- and pollution-relevant trace gases?
• What are the important controls on trace gas biogeochemistry and atmosphere-ocean transfer in estuarine and coastal waters?
• How are the atmospheric emissions from ships and the regulation of these emissions influencing the marine environment?

Our work helps to improve understanding of the role that the oceans play in the Earth system. Our data is used within models to understand how the air-sea fluxes of gases might change in response to various future scenarios including changes in marine biota, ocean acidification, warming and other stressors.

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